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THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 




"I therefore stood there with my posies like some June bride, 
looking as self-conscious as I felt." [Page 245.] 



THE 
WAY OF THE EAGLE 



BY 

MAJOR CHARLES J. BIDDLE 

n. 73; 103d aero squadron (escadrille lafayette) 
13th aero squadron; 4th pursuit group 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1919 



3% s 



OOPTBIQBT, 1919, BT 

CHARLES SCRIBNKRS SONS 



l'ubllshod Juno, 1919 







fffl 

OLIVER MOULTON CHADWICK 
KILLED IN ACTION, AUGUST 14, 1917 



FOREWORD 

In order that any one who may chance to read this 
book of letters may better understand the detailed 
descriptions of fights in the air which it contains, cer- 
tain fundamental facts of a more or less technical 
nature should be at all times kept clearly in mind. 

As every one knows, there are many different types 
of aeroplanes specially adapted to as many different 
uses. Among these there are three distinct classes 
which cannot be confused without resulting in an 
almost complete failure to appreciate the tactics of 
air fighting. 

These three classes are: first, the small single-seater 
fighting plane known to the French as an "avion de 
chasse," to the English as a "scout," and to the 
American Air Service as a "pursuit machine." Next 
comes the larger type used for the taking of photo- 
graphs and gathering of information, the regulation of 
artillery fire, liaison work with the infantry, and the 
dropping of bombs from high altitudes during the 
daytime. This type usually carries two, sometimes 
three, men. Finally we have the great multi-motored 
bomber equipped with two, three or four engines and 
carrying a crew of from two to eight men. 

The pursuit plane is the smallest and fastest of all 
flying machines and has almost always carried but one 
man. Typical of this type are the French Spad and 
Nieuport, the English S. E. 5 and Sopwith Camel, and 
for the Germans the Albatross, the Pfalz, and the 
Fokker. The United States produced no machines of 
this type and our pursuit squadrons were entirely 



viii FOREWORD 

equipped with French Spads and Nieuports. The 
speed of these machines varies from 100 to almost 
135 miles per hour. Their function is purely to fight 
and by lighting to create an area in which it will be 
reasonably safe for their own larger machines to work 
and by attacking the larger machines of the enemy, 
to prevent them from accomplishing their missions. 
They are also used for attacking roads, etc., from a 
low altitude with small bombs and machine-gun fire, 
known in the Air Service as "strafing." 

Speaking generally the pursuit machine is armed with 
one or two machine guns which are bolted fast in front 
of the pilot above the motor and which cannot be moved 
in any direction. The guns fire only straight ahead 
through the revolving blades of the propeller and the 
machine is totally unprotected in the rear, relying for 
its safety upon its speed and ability to manoeuvre 
quickly. Above the guns is mounted a sight which 
is lined up with them and then bolted fast. To shoot 
it is therefore necessary for the pilot to aim his whole 
plane by manoeuvring it with his controls and when he 
has in this way brought his sights to bear upon his 
enemy, he fires by pressing triggers which are attached 
to his control stick and connected with the guns by 
means of wires. 

There is no mystery about a machine gun firing 
through a propeller without hitting the blades. Nearly 
every one understands the principle by which the 
valves of a gasoline motor are timed so as to open and 
close at a given point in the revolution of the engine. 
In the same way a machine gun may be timed to shoot. 
On the end of the cam shaft of the motor is placed an 
additional cam. Next to this is a rod connected with 



FOREWORD ix 

the breech block of the gun. When the gun is not being 
fired the rod is held away from the cam by a spring. 
Pressing the trigger brings the two into contact and 
each time that the cam revolves it strikes the rod which 
in turn trips the hammer of the gun and causes it to 
fire. The cam is regulated so that it comes in contact 
with the rod just as each blade has passed the muzzle 
of the gun which can therefore fire at this time only. 
The engine revolves at least 1000 turns per minute and 
as there are two chances for the gun to fire for each 
revolution, this would allow the gun to fire 2000 
shots per minute. The rate of fire of a machine gun 
varies from about 400 to 1000 shots per minute accord- 
ing to the type of gun and the way in which it is rigged. 
The gun therefore has many more opportunities to 
fire between the blades of the propeller than its rate 
of fire will permit it to make use of. Consequently 
the gun can work at full speed regardless of ordinary 
variations in the number of revolutions of the engine. 
The second type of plane is nearly always a two- 
seater although some three-seaters were also used for 
this work. Their purpose is to gain information, take 
pictures and so forth but not to fight unless attacked 
and forced to defend themselves. Examples of the 
two-seater type are the English De Havilands and R. E. 
8, the French Breguet and Salmson, the American 
Liberty, which is a copy of the English De Haviland 4, 
and the German Rumpler and Halberstadt. In this 
class of machine the pilot has one or two fixed guns 
shooting straight ahead as in the single-seater. In ad- 
dition to this, however, the observer, who sits in a cock- 
pit behind the pilot, is armed with one or two movable 
machine guns mounted on a swivel. He can fire these 



x FOREWORD 

guns in any direction except in those angles which are 
blinded by the wings, body, and tail portions of his 
own machine. The two-seater, called a "biplace" 
by the French, being larger and slower than the single- 
seater and therefore incapable of being so quickly 
handled, would be at the latter's mercy were it not for 
the protection afforded by its movable guns. The 
pilot of a two-seater has comparatively little oppor- 
tunity to use his guns and they can be rather easily 
avoided by the single-seater. It is the fire from the 
observer's guns which the pursuit machine must guard 
against in attacking a two-seater. This he usually 
does by approaching either from the front or by seek- 
ing to get into a position behind and below so as to 
shield himself by keeping behind the body and tail 
planes of his enemy. The observer cannot of course 
shoot through his own machine without risk of bringing 
himself down. 

The third class is much the largest and slowest of all, 
constructed with a view to carrying great weights. It 
is protected both fore and aft by movable machine 
guns, but its size, slow speed, and inability to climb 
to high altitudes, make it very vulnerable to attack 
both by anti-aircraft fire from the ground and by 
enemy pursuit machines. It was therefore used, at 
least on the western front, almost exclusively for night 
bombing. Examples of this type are the English 
Handley-Page, the Italian Caproni and the German 
Gotha. The United States at the end of the war had 
not gotten any night bombers on the front. 

The distances at which fighting is carried on in the 
air is not nearly so great as is generally supposed. Al- 
most all successful combats were fought at ranges less 



FOREWORD xi 

than 300 feet and again the majority of these at between 
200 feet and 30 feet. There were of course many in- 
stances of planes being brought down at longer ranges 
but these were the exception. The speed of machines 
is so great and the angles so changeable as to be al- 
most impossible to calculate with anything approaching 
accuracy. The only sure shot is that at almost point- 
blank range where the question of how far one must 
shoot ahead of a moving mark in order to hit it is 
greatly simplified. 

This difficulty in shooting explains why so much air 
fighting is often carried on with so little result. In 
addition to this, although an aeroplane seems to pre- 
sent a large target, the vital spots which must be hit 
in order to bring it down are in reality very small. 
The men and the vitals of the machinery take up but 
a small fraction of the machine and the parts where 
they are not may be riddled without apparent effect. 

These letters were written to members of the author's 
family without thought of publication and the author 
is still very much in doubt as to whether they should 
be published. They have been printed almost exactly 
as they were written except for the omission of some 
personal names and of the more private matters. In ad- 
dition to this, accounts of a number of combats have 
been omitted which, owing to their similarity to other 
fights described, it was feared might become tedious. 
A few descriptions and criticisms have been inserted 
which the author would have written at the same time 
as the rest of the letters had it not been for lack of 
time and the censorship regulations. Names of places 
have also been added. 

CHAELES J. BlDDLE. 
Philadelphia, Pa., March 25, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

PAOB 

In the Schools 3 

Escadbille N. 73 41 

E8CADRILLE LAFAYETTE 145 

L3th Abbo Squadron, A. B. P 217 

4th Pursuit Group, A. E. F 285 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

"I UiWiforo hUxkI Mien- wil-li rn.y ponicH like 101116 .Juri«; l>ri<l<!, 

looking ai lalf-oonfoioui ai I felt" FronUepiece 

The pin of ^ French Military Pilol /'«</« 2 

"Atterriieage eur le dof " Facing page \*\ 

AuUio/'.! Bleriot monoplane training plane after forced land 

in^, June 2, i*>17 Facing page M 

Nieuport training-plane on ite note " " 20 

[ntignia of Etcadrille N. 73 Page 40 

Captain Oeorgee Ghiynemer Facing page 42 

A bad imath " " 62 

Bpad planee of Etcadrille N. 73 " " - r j2 

King Albert of Belgium decorating aviaton . . " " 66 

Queen Elizabeth of Belgium getting out of French plane 

/•'in mi/ page 66 

( laptain Ghiynemer about to itart on the laet flight from which 

he ever returned Facing page 7-1 

The latt flight " " 102 

The oar of a French night bomber, Vol; in type " " 132 

[ntignia of Etcadrille Lafayette (103d Aero Squadron, A. E. F.) 

Page J -14 

He ranaine of two Bpad planef of the Etcadrille Lafayette 

Facing page LOO 

XV 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow" .... Facing page 190 

A portion of the Ypres sector " " 190 

Lieutenant Rene" Fonok, the nee of aces, in front of his Spad 

Facing page 206 

"Dentli the Greal Reaper"; the insignia of 13th Aero Squad- 
ron, A. E. F Page 216 

Bun-hunting with the camera Facing page 228 

German Rumpler two-seater " " 242 

Observer's cockpit and machine-gun of machine shown facing 

page 242 Facing page 252 

A direct hit " " 2S0 

The end of a famous American ace " " 2S0 

Insignia of U. S. Military Pilot Page 284 



IN THE SCHOOLS 




Tl\o ptn of .i 
I Pilot 



AtOI , April l. r >, 1017. 

My application for permission to enli it in the French 
Foreign Legion, Aviation Section, went in on • 
24th. H takes several ireel for 1 1 j i . to go through 
however and if, was not until last Tuesday that \>r. 

X notified m<; that f bad been accepted. The 

day i went to a dingy recruiting office near the 
[nvalides and was examined by the French da 
The office reminded me v<-ry much of an old print of 
an ancient police station from Dickens. A dark little 
place with barred windows adorned with numerous 
cobwebs, on each side of the main room a rough 
bench, and in the corner a huge old fashioned barrel 
: fcove. 'J he examination iras not severe, none of that 
businei of shooting pistols ofl unexpectedly that ire 
used to bear iras part of an aviator's prelmiinary ex- 
amination. There were a number of men being ex- 
amined for the infantry of the Foreign Legion at the 
same time. We all stripped to our bare skin 
Frenchmen, another American and myself, and 
gentlemen at whose nationality one could only g 
One of Hie latter who spoke a little Engli 1j was much 
perturbed because he forgot and signed his real name. 
Jl<: had -'«.II his papers made up in an alias and then got 
excited at the last minute. The officer in charge 
noticed the mistake but laughed and passed it over. 
They ar< u ed to such thingi in the Lemon. Of© 
the Aviation Division of "La Legion Etrangere" is en- 
tirely separate from the Infantry so far ai our seeing 
anything of the latter is concerned. On Thursday J 
a 



4 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

went to the [nvalides, enlisted, and reoeived my oi> 
den, wiiich were to prooeed b> the aviation school nt. 
Avon! i he following morning. This I did, arriving here 
Friday afternoon and here I am. 

This school is a most extremely interesting plaoe 
and more enormous than anything one who had not 
seen i< could possibly imagine. The aviation fields 
and hangars literally stretch for miles and I can hardly 
guess how many machines there arc here. 1 should 
say about six hundred. Ai the Curtiss school at New- 
port News there were about fifteen. This is (he largest 
school in Pranoe, but there are many oilier very largo 
ones scattered all over the country. Any morning ov 
afternoon when the weather permits, (he machines 

look like the crows (lying home (o roost from (he 

marshes on the Delaware. 

l started work on Saturday morning in the beginners 1 
The machines are known as "Penguins" ami 

are Bleriot monoplanes with small engines and (heir 
wingS OUt down so that (hey cannot fly, They are 

rather ditlicult to handle and are designed to teach (he 

men tO Steer straight. At first you go sideways and 
twist around in every direction except the one in which 
you wish to go. After yon catch on to them however 
you gO tripping along oxer the ground at some 35 Of 
10 miles an hour. When you graduate from this 
class you go (o another called " lvouleurs." These are 
Bleriots which will fly but the pupils are not allowed 
(o take them o(\ the ground. I will write you all 
about the various steps as I go along. At all events it 
will probably be from one (o two months before 1 get 
off the ground and six before 1 get to the front, so there 
is nothing to worry about just yet. In this school a 



IN THE SCHOOLS 5 

pupil is so thoroughly trained is the rudiments that 
by the time he is ready to fly he is capable <>r doing BO 
with the least possible danger. The Frenoh machines 
are beautifully made, nothing that we have so far in 
America can compare with them. 

You would laugh to see your rule little son dri 
up in the blue uniform of a French poilu. The govern- 
ment gives us everything from the skin out and the 
committee for the Franco-American Flying Corps pro- 
vides us with a really good uniform. I have just 
ordered mine from the tailor, r am going to take i ome 
pictures with my kodak and will send them to you as 
soon as they are finished. We live in a barracks, 
about twenty men in a mom, and eat in a great mess 
shack. There are about three thousand men in the 
camp counting mechanics and quantities of Annamites. 
These latter act as servants, make roads and do the 
dirty work generally. They come from [ndo-China, and 
look much like* Chinese. They all shellac their teeth 
until they arc coal black which gives their faces a most 

extraordinary expression. 

The food is wholesome enough although extremely 
rough, nothing like as good as the U. S. Army gets. 

There are canteens when; we buy tilings to help out 
and we receive 200 francs a month from the Franco- 
American Committee for this purpose. I am therefore 

not exactly living in luxury but am getting so fat and 
healthy you won't know me when I come home. 

P. S. I enclose two notes, one for one franc and the 

other for 50 centimes. They are part of my first pay 

as a soldier of France and I thought, thai you or mother 
might care to keep them. We get one franc 25 cen- 
times per day which is 5 times what the infantry gets. 



G THE WAY 01' THE EAGLE 

Avonn, May 3, 1917. 
On May 1 a new schedule went into effect here and 
Ave now get up at 4 a. M., work until 9 a. m., lunch at 
10, supper at 5 p. m., back to work at 5.30 and do not 
quit until dark which is about 9 P. m. Remember that 
under our daylight saving plan the clocks are all one 
hour ahead, so this really means getting up at 3 A. M. 
Vim can Bee that this does not leave much time for 
sleep, but as we are off all during the heat of the day, 
we make it up then. The reason for these peculiar 
hours is of course because during the heat of the day 
the air becomes full of holes or "remous" as the 
French call them, which are very unpleasant affairs 
for an "edeve pilotc."* Although we have been hav- 
ing beautiful weather for the past ten days, only about 
half of them have been good for flying, owing to too 
much wind. May is however supposed to be the best 
month of the year here for our work, so we should make 
good progress. I have just been promoted with the 
rest o{ my class from the Penguins to the "Rouleurs," 
and shall probably remain in this class for three weeks. 
The object of the Rouleurs is to teach the pupil to 
steer a straight course and to get a correct "ligne de 
vol."t The machine will fly but we are not allowed to 
Leave the ground. It will therefore be some time yet 
before I begin to do any actual flying. 

Avord, May 15th, 1917. 
Since my last letter I have passed through the "Rou- 
leur" class and am now in the "De'colleur." Tn the 
latter class we use the same machine as in the "Rou- 

•Student pilot, fl^wo* Bight. 



IN THE SCHOOLS 7 

leur" but are allowed to fly it a little. We start by 
going up three feet, flying along a short distance and 
then shutting off the motor and allowing the machine 
to settle back on the ground. By degrees we take the 
machine higher and higher in straight flights up and 
down a big field. After a while we will be sent on to 
another class where we fly a little higher and make 
regular sure enough landings. All these flights are 
straight, the machine being brought to the ground at 
each end of the field and turned by hand. In this way 
the pupil in a sense teaches himself to fly and the in- 
structor merely stands on the ground with the rest of 
the class and tells you what to do before you start. 
The monitor does not go up with the pupil as a general 
rule until after he has obtained his military license on 
the Bleriot machine and begins to learn to drive a 
Nieuport. The training for the pilots of the large 
machines such as Caudrons and Farmans is somewhat 
different but I hope not to have anything to do with 
these types. The schooling for a pilot of the small 
fast scout or "chasse" machines as the French call them 
is usually the training on the Bleriot monoplanes. 
The chasse machines are more difficult to drive than 
the bigger planes, and if a man proves inapt in the 
Bleriot School he is "radiated" to a Caudron or a 
Farman and after completing his training on these 
types is sent to the front as a pilot of one of the larger 
planes which do such work as picture taking, the regu- 
lation of artillery fire and bomb dropping. This is of 
course very interesting work but I should much pre- 
fer to be in the chasse, which appeals to me more than 
the other. 
As I said before I am now in the D6colleur class and 



8 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

am jus! beginning to fly. So Par I have not been higher 
than the remarkable altitude of six feet. 

Au.kp, May 24th, 1017. 

The last page of this letter ha* been written on the 
above date and at Avord, l came back Last Saturday 
tin* L9th, ami have really not had a moment to do any- 
thing but work, eat and Bleep since that time. About. 
a week ago, almost, the whole school dosed up duo to a 
lack oi oil ami everyone went away on permission. 
My particular class had gone away the week before 
ami si> when our one week's permission was up we had 
to come bark although there was but little prospect 
o( our being able to work, it so happens, however, 
that there is enough oil for the few men who are here 
to work with, and as there an 1 plenty o( machines 
and monitors l have boon able io fly to my heart's con- 
tent. No standing around waiting for some one else 
to get through. Since last Saturday 1 have had twice 
as much time living as in all the rest o( my sojourn here 
put together, and it is now real flying. Yesterday 1 was 
Up for two hours and a half and an hour and a half 
this morning. 'The flying is all by yourself of course 
under this system. This morning I got up a little over 
two hundred metres. * The country is beautiful in its 
spring plumage and with the ranges oi hills on the 
horizon, presents a wonderful picture from the air. 
You get no feeling o( di.-.'.iness and one is so thor- 
oughly familiarised with the machines before being 
allowed to leave the ground that when one does go 
up one feels capable oi handling one's plane. Kven 
after we are allowed to tlv we are kept making straight 

* A mot re is, roughly speaking, a yard, mare exaotly 39 end * inches. 



IN THE SCHOOLS 9 

lines up and down B big field at low altitudes for 

several days before we do any cruising about the 
country. Since Saturday 1 have passed through four 
jrou can see that we are moving right along. 
If, Koch without saying that this is infinitely better Mian 
the first of the training and I certainly am enjoying it. 

There IS nothing scary about it SO far and the work is; 
very interesting and no end of sport. I would, how- 
ever, rather shoot ducks! ! ! ! 

Avokd, May 30th, 1017. 
Since writing to mother last week I have finished up 
all the work preliminary to the tests for my military 

brevet and have started in on the latter. The last 
two things the clove does before beginning his final I e I , 
are a serpentine and a spiral from seven or eight hun- 
dred metres with motor shut off, to a given landing 
place. These manoeuvres are simply what their name 
implies and an; methods of losing height without gain- 
ing distance, i- e., to land on a spot under you. Yester- 
day morning I did the first of the tests for my brevet, 
consisting of two short trips to a nearby village, a 
landing then; and return. This is very easy, the round 

trip being only about sixty kilometres. The first time 
I flew at a height of 1000 metres. From this height 
you can see for miles and if is quite easy to follow a 
map, as streams, roads, woods, and other landmarks 
stand out very clearly. By the time I made my second 
trip a good many low clouds had come up. I had just 
about reached the top of diem at 800 metres when my 
motor commenced to go badly so that I could not climb 
any higher. As I had still about twenty-five minutes 
to stay up in order to fill in the necessary hour, which 



10 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

one must remain In the Air »m these trips, 1 bad to 
.spend it dodging about among the clouds. They an 
wry unpleasant things to get in In :t Bleriot and when 
we go through them at all we piok a hole. Yesterday 
there was plenty of room in between them bo that it 
was easy t»» see the ground} but when you looked off 
in tln> distance they seemed solid and resemble a huge 
snow field more than anything else. It is quite a novel 
experience flying around above the clouds but 1 do not 

think it will take long to get used to it. The trouble 

with them is that they shut out the view and the going 
around the edges is very rough and bumpy. 

One thing that bothers me a little is that the machine 
gun instruction and pr.u-t ioo has been much reduced. 

The reason for this seems to be in order io save time iu 

turning out pilots, hut to my mind it is very poor econ- 
omy, I knOW enough about Bhooting to know how 
hard it is to hit a mo\ big mark. Many of the men here 
know nothing about shooting and think that all you 
have to do is to shoot straight at what you want to 
hit. which is of course the surest way to miss it. There 
is a machine gun school near Bordeaux where the men 
used to go, A friend o( mine named Chadwick who 

has just finished here and gone to this school, got there 
by putting in a special request on the ground that he 

did UOt know one end o( the gun from another. 1 have 
had no black marks here so far and if I go through 
without any. 1 am going to put in a similar request. In 
this business it seems to me it is as important to know 
how to shoot as to fly, 

A\eui\ June tth, 1917, 
To supplement my last letter to father and tell you 
what I have been doing lately in the flying line, I 



in Tin; SCHOOLS Ji 

have been very busy taking my testa for my military 
brevet which I completed successfully on June 2. 
They consisted of two triangles of 22."> kilometres 

each. The route lay from Avon] to two other towns 
the names of which I shall not give in order not to 
irritate our friend the Cen or.* A landing \g required 

at each of these towns, where you have your papers 

signed and take on gasoline and oil. We are furnished 

witli a/i excellent map and there is really no difficulty 

at all in following one's route 1 . The country lie: be- 
fore you like a reproduction of your map and from 1200 

metres you can make out with ease such landmarks as 

rivers, canals, wood:;, ponds and roads, and cities show 
Up while you are still miles away from them. I found 
1200 or 1300 metres a very satisfactory height as you 

are then high enough to get a good comprehensive 

view (jf the country and to have time in which to pick 
out a suitable landing place; in case anything goes 

wron^ with your motor and you have to land. At the 

same time you are low enough to he able to distinguish 

the detail of things below you and thus to better identify 
places OS your map. Another thing we must do is 

to ascend to an altitude of 2000 metres and remain 

above that height for .an hour, and 1 have already 
written to father about the "petit voyage" t< I . 
On June first I started off on my first triangle and as 

the weather was good and my motor ran wdl, I had 

no trouble at all. On the last leg of the trip 1 thought 
I would work in my altitude so let her climb right 

on up. P>y the time I reached the camp I was up 

2000 metres, but to be on the safe side went on up to 
2400 which is about as high as a Bleriot of the kind I 

* Ghateauroux and Romorantm. 



12 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

had will go, without forcing the motor too much. It 
took me 45 minutes to reach 2000 metres and this is 
very good for the type of machine I had. The new 
Spad biplanes in use at the front will do the same thing 
in six or seven minutes. It is not so very different at 
this height than at a thousand metres, except that the 
details begin to fade a little and the country looks even 
more like a map. June first was warm on the ground 
but at 2400 metres your breath looked like a lot of 
smoke and it was quite cold. 

After I had been up there cruising around for almost 
an hour over the camp and had only ten more minutes to 
stay, my motor suddenly stopped as though it had 
run out of gasoline. There was nothing for it but to 
start down and I was very much disgusted as it meant 
I should have to do the altitude over again. As soon 
as I started for the ground I began regulating my 
gas, etc., to try and find out what was wrong and as 
luck would have it, got the motor going again by the 
time I reached 2200 metres. After that she went all 
right until I finally came down, but the next day she 
quit on me completely when I was half way through 
my second triangle. That day the clouds and mist 
were so low that you could not fly, at the particular 
time that I had my trouble, at an altitude of more than 
450 metres. This is entirely too low to be comfortable 
as it gives you little time to pick out a landing place if 
you are forced to come down, and makes it necessary 
to fly around woods and country where a landing can- 
not be made. When my motor started to go bad I 
picked out a fine field, but when I reached 300 metres 
the engine improved and I thought it was going to 
come to life again as it had the day before. I there- 



IN THE SCHOOLS 13 

fore decided to go on for a few minutes and when I had 
gotten just far enough to miss the good field, she died 
suddenly and irretrievably. On one side of me was a 
large woods and on the other a small stream and coun- 
try so cut up with hills, hedges and trees that it was 
impossible to land. In the middle was what appeared 
to be a very good narrow field full of wild flowers, 
but I was suspicious of it on account of the stream 
along the edge. However, a marsh is better than a 
woods any day and there was nothing else to do but 
take a try at it. When I got low to the ground I saw 
that it was soft and fully expected to turn over when 
my wheels hit the mud. The only chance in such a 
situation is to put the tail down first and let the machine 
lose all the speed possible before the wheels hit the 
ground. This I did and to my delight she only ran 
about fifteen feet on the ground and stopped right side 
up. 

The grass was eighteen inches high and water 
slopped up over your shoes when you walked. My 
wheels were six inches in the mud and you should have 
seen the mud and water fly when I hit. The inevitable 
crowd of French peasants soon began to arrive and I 
took some pictures of the machine with the gang of 
onlookers standing around it. The trouble was soon 
located in a couple of broken spark plugs. These I 
replaced from my tool kit and with the help of some 
peasants pushed the machine to dryer ground. I in- 
structed the most intelligent looking man how to turn 
over the propeller so as to start the motor and at the 
same time not have it come around and take his head 
off. The ground was still pretty soft and it was quite 
a job to get enough speed to lift the machine off the 



II THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

pound. When I did ,^ v i going, it was the middle of the 
day, quite windy and the heal waves and holes in the 
air were pretty bad. The ride to my next stopping 
place was the roughest 1 have yet experienced, luit was 
not enough so to bo dangerous ami reaUy made the 
trip more fun, The sensation reminded mo more of a 

oanoe on the river on a very rough day than anything 

else. My experience in canoes has 1 think helped mo 

more than anything else to get the feel o( an aeroplane 

and to bo able to know just how far 1 can let one go 
without being afraid that it is going to turn over. In 
the Nieuports and Spads. oneo yon are a sufficient dis- 
tance from the ground, you ean let them fall sideways, 
turn upsido down or do any old thing and then right 
them again. Asa matter of fact they really right them- 
selves most of the time, but a Bleriot monoplane is a 
different proposition and onee she upsets with you, the 
jig is often up. 

The remainder of my test was uneventful and 1 am 
now a breveted military "pilote aviateur" and am 
ranked as a eorporal. To all appearances I am the 
same sweet young thing except that I now have wings 
on my collar and my '"ensigne" has two wings on it in- 
stead of one. When I get to Paris I may have a picture 
taken in uniform and send it to you if they don't soak 
me too much for it. By the way, I have no wings on 
my back yet ! 

From what I have told you oi a Rleriot you may be 
glad to know that I have now finished with them and 
to-night start work in the Nieuport School here. The 
average time in the Nieuport School is about two weeks 
and is spent in learning how to do ordinary living and 
landings in this type of plane. They are biplanes and 




a le 'I'.-.'' 



,\ 8pad not be landed. 

July. 1917. 



PL : B '!• . ■ Franc 




•aining-pk 
2, 1917. 



<l lamli 



IN THE SCHOOLS 15 

entirely different from the Bleriot monoplane, being 
much more stable but also a great deal heavier and 
faster. The Bleriots which we used only make some- 
thing between fifty and sixty miles an hour while the 
Nieuport goes nearer one hundred. The former is 
however as I have said, a wonderful training machine 
and the way you can smash them up without hurting 
yourself, is nothing short of marvellous. I have myself 
seen students charge headfirst into the ground at full 
speed from a height of fifty feet, completely wreck the 
machine and yet step out of it without a scratch. It 
was not at all uncommon in the Bleriot School for a 
man to fall a hundred metres and sometimes more 
and come off with a few cuts and bruises. Wrecking 
machines by bad landings is the commonest thing in 
the world and the average must be at least two a day. 
This is a minimum estimate and I have seen five or 
six wrecks lined up at the side of the field to be taken to 
the shops as the result of a single day's work. Yet in 
all the time I have been here there has not been a single 
fatal accident in the Bleriot School nor a single bone 
broken. Some few men have been pretty badly bruised 
up so that they had to sojourn in the hospital for a 
couple of weeks but that is about all. The reason for 
this is that the Bleriots are very light and just strong 
enough to take up the shock, at the same time going to 
pieces and letting the pilot down easy. He is protected 
on every side by some part of the machine and when 
belted in, is just as though he were suspended in the 
middle of a lot of shock absorbers. 

This system of self-instruction is only used in the 
Bleriot School and when a man completes the course he 
should have pretty well acquired the feel of an aero- 



16 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

plane. It is a very expensive method and one that no 
private school could afford to follow unless indemnified 
by the pupils. In every case that I know of, however, 
the accident has been the fault of the pupil and due 
either to his not following instructions, losing his 
head, or to rank stupidity. 

Barring the one case of having your motor go back 
on you when you are over country where it is very 
difficult to land, there is no reason at all why a man of 
reasonable ability who is accustomed to out of door 
sports, should smash if he keeps his wits about him. 
Many of the men hardly give their work a thought 
except when they are actually in a machine and do 
not seem to appreciate how much there is to learn. 
I am trying to spend all my spare time studying French 
so as to be able to take the instruction in better, 
and in reading up books on planes and motors and 
how and why they work. This is the reason that I 
am pressed for time and cannot write a great deal but 
it seems to me only common sense and your own salva- 
tion to do so. The one case I mentioned of a motor 
going bad when you have no safe place on which to 
make a landing, should really never occur in school as 
you can always pick a good route to the places you are 
sent and if you fly high enough, should have no diffi- 
culty in effecting a landing. A man hardly ever goes 
through his triangles without having his motor " pan- 
ne"* with him at least once and I really think the au- 
thorities want this to happen so as to see how the 
student will take care of himself. The reason for the 
motors failing is that we use a type of engine in most 
of the Bleriots which is much inferior to those used at 
the front and is no longer in service there. 

* Break down. 



IN THE SCHOOLS 17 

Avord, June 5, 1917. 

Julian Biddle arrived here on Saturday and has 
started in in the Caudron School instead of the Bleriot 
as I did. The training in the Caudron is not a system of 
self-instruction but you begin by flying right away in a 
double command machine with a monitor. Julian 
chose this method because he thinks it is quicker, 
which is probably true, but I doubt if it is as good. 
It is the same system as that used at Newport News and 
the machines are much larger and more stable than the 
Bleriots. Yesterday when I was writing to you I was 
sitting in a hay-rick at an old farm about three miles 
from the school and Julian was in the straw nearby. 
I first went to this place ten days ago with Oliver Chad- 
wick and have spent many pleasant hours there since. 
Chadwick was in my class at the Harvard Law 
School and is an exceptionally fine fellow. He was 
also probably the most skilful American pilot here, but 
I am sorry to say that he left several days ago and 
is now at the school of "perfectionnement" and acro- 
batics at Pau. I shall follow him there in a couple of 
weeks as soon as I have finished the Nieuport School. 
I hope we get in the same unit as we get along very 
well together and he is a first class man in every way. 
It is very nice also to have Julian here and there are 
several other good fellows whom I know that are ex- 
pected shortly. I hope we can continue to get men of 
this type in the organization. 

The farm I spoke of is just a typical French peasant 
place where a nice old man and his wife live with their 
two grandchildren, a very lively pair of boys. The 
"family" also includes two girls and a young fellow 
who work about the farm, look after the sheep, cook, 



is THE WA? OF THE EAGLE 

etc You oan get quantities of delicious fresh milk, 
eggs, and oottage cheese at a ridiculously cheap price. 
Nearby is a great big hay-rick where 1 sit and write and 
do a good deal o\' sleeping. As we get up al 3.30 a. m. 
and oannot get bo bed before L0.30, it is absolutely 
necessary to get some sleep during the day and I find 
the quiet of this place a great relief. The walk to ami 
back from the farm also provides a bit of exercise. 

I think thai probably the most important thing in this 
business IS perfect physical condition and I have been 
taking care o( myself as I never have before. YOU said 
in your last letter that Bishop Brent was so impressed 
with the moral conditions over here. They are not 
good 1 must admit, according to our standards, but 

then you must remember that French ideas on these 
things are entirely different from ours even among the 

best people. They are brought up to an entirely dif- 
ferent standard and the worth while ones live up to 

their own ideals although at the same time doing things 

that we WOUld not approve of. It seems tome that if a 
man lives up to his own standards o( what is right, that 
that is about all you can expect of him. The man who 
deserves condemnation is the one who has standards 
OT should have them but is not man enough to live up 
to them. 

You asked me in one of your letters if I had ever 
heard oi the place where your little French "orphan" 
lives with his mother. I don't know for sure but should 
say at a guess that it was somewhere in heaven. I 
DOVer before heard ol an orphan living with a parent 
but will try to look him up if I ever get near his abode. 



IN THE SCHOOLS I!) 

A\m;i>, June 13, 1017. 

After my long letter to mother of last week, (here is 
not so much news (<> tell you. For eight days after 
I was transferred bo the Nieuport school, I did nothing 
but warm a bench and wait until I could get a chance 
to fly, Three days ago ii came, and so far, I have found 
no difficulty in driving a Nieuport after my training on 
the Bleriot. The Nieuport is much steadier and gives 
you a Peeling of perfect safety. You can look all about 
you without thinking much of the flying of the machine 
and the sensation in volplaning down to a landing is 
mueh the same as that you get in coming down in a 
good elevator so far as stability is concerned; without 
any of the queer reeling in your stomach that an ele- 
vator gives you. As to smashes and injuries, as I 
think I told you before, 1 have yet to see a ease where 
the trouble was not caused either by the student- getting 
rattled and not using his head, or by doing something 
contrary to instructions. 

The Nieuport lands much faster than (lie Bleriot 

and although easier to do ordinary simple flying in, is 
harden- to fly and land really well. The machine of 
this type in use at the front has a plane area of only 15 
metres. The wings are so small you hardly see how 
they lift the weight. The reason of course is the high 
speed. 

You speak in your letter about, not being rash. 
Taking chances to no purpose is of course foolish, but, 
in a game of this kind one must act on the judgment of a 

second and snap and dash are, I think', essential to suc- 
cess. The nature of (lie work makes necessary what 
to many people would seem rashness. Tn order to 
attain real skill a military aviator docs many things 



20 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

that he would not do for the fun of it if he were learn- 
ing to be a peaceful pilot. You of course know what 
I mean and we both know that there is a great dif- 
ference between this sort of thing and mere foolhardy 
rashness. War is of course largely a matter of chances, 
but in aviation it is a good rule, I think, never to take 
a chance just, for the sport of the thing when there is 
nothing to be gained by succeeding, and above all, 
never do a stunt, etc., in a machine not intended for 
that kind o( work. This is the way many splendid 

flyers are killed and the way met his end. 

A new student here who was at P at the time and 

picked up 's remains, told me today that he 

was killed because he attempted to loop the loop in a 
machine which had been weakened by the many rough 
landings made in it by students. One of the other men 

had remarked the same morning that would 

kill himself if he did not stop doing stunts in that 
machine. It is the same way here, there are hundreds 
o( machines perfectly safe for the ordinary straight 
living that you are supposed to do, which would not be 
expected to stand the acrobatic work such as is done in 
the machines used at Pau. 

Avord, June 21, 1017. 
Am still here at Avord and owing to a couple of slight 
mishaps it will probably be three or four days more 
before I have finished up ami am on my way to Pau. 
This Xtenport school is not as easy as it is cracked up 
to be and the landing of this type of machine has proved 
the most difficult thing for me so far. The machines 
are heavy and fast and land in a totally different fashion 
from the Bleriots on which we received our preliminary 




Nieupon training-plane on its nose. 

Accldenl caused bj a wheel beina broken hv •, , • 

Fiance rutin i<n- v Droicen i>.\ a rough landing, Avord, 

off ' ' '■''• A " " m " nl tl > the author's skill or rlther lack 



IN THE SCHOOLS 21 

training. If you do not get them on the ground prop- 
erly, you are very likely to bounce, then a wheel 
breaks when you come down again, the axle sticks in the 
ground and the old boat turns turtle. Four or five 
days ago I made a rough landing and in doing so must 
have bent one of the wheels. I stopped the machine 
and then started to roll along the ground from the land- 
ing place to the starting point. After I had gone about 
fifty yards, a wheel suddenly caved in and the machine 
stood on its nose, breaking the propeller but that was 
all. As we are of course belted in, all I had to do was to 
unfasten the belt and slide out. I then proceeded to 
take a picture of the machine as she stood on her 
nose, a pretty monument to my prowess. When they 
are done, I will send you one. This accident was due 
to my not having sense enough to stop and see if every- 
thing was all right after I had made the landing. 

After that everything went all right for a couple of 
days when I made another rough landing, the wheels 
gave way and the next thing I knew the machine 
turned a summersault and lit in the middle of its back. 
As you are already on the ground when you perform 
these stunts you cannot very well hurt yourself, but 
not so the machine. 

Mine was pretty well bunged up this time, while 
nothing at all happened to me except a pair of barked 
shins where I kicked the front of the gas tank. I 
should say that at least sixty per cent, of the pupils in 
the Nieuport School have the same thing happen to 
them before they learn and the daily average of "Ca- 
potages"* as the French call them, must certainly be 
five machines out of about thirty on the field. I should, 



22 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

however, by using my head, have been one of those to 
go through without a smash, especially after complet- 
ing what is supposed to be the hardest part of the train- 
ing, the Bleriot School, without difficulty. 

Yesterday I made ten trips by myself again and think 
I now have it. My difficulty was caused by trying to 
cut the landings too fine for a beginner and should have 
been avoided by the exercise of a little intelligence. 

I am glad my troubles came here rather than at 
Pau, for on what we do there, will depend largely 
what kind of a machine we get later on and I am of 
course anxious to get the best. 

Pau. June 30, 1917. 
The only thing I have done here so far in the way of 
flying, is some vertical spirals, but in the course of 
these I did some acrobatic stunts by mistake. In the 
vertical spirals you are instructed to tip your machine 
over sideways to an angle of about 75 or 80 degrees and 
then by pulling up on your elevating planes (which by 
reason of the vertical position of the machine, then 
operate in the same way as the rudder when the ma- 
chine is in its normal position i. e. as a horizontal con- 
trol) to execute a close spiral. In doing this the ma- 
chine follows a course much like a grain of shot would 
if you put it in a bottle and caused it to run round the 
side by moving the bottle rapidly in a circle. The first 
time I tried this everything went all right, but the next 
time, I pulled my elevating planes too soon before the 
machine had tipped up enough. The result was that 
the elevating planes were still performing their normal 
functions and instead of doing a spiral, I did something 
which resembled an irregular loop the loop. When the 



IN THE SCHOOLS 23 

machine got up on her end and started to go over back- 
wards and sideways, it naturally did not take me long 
to guess that something was wrong. When you get 
mixed up in a Nieuport, all you have to do is to put 
your controls in the center and the machine soon be- 
gins to dive head first for mother earth. It is then a 
very simple matter to pull her up straight again. I 
simply followed instructions and did this and the ma- 
chine came out without the slightest difficulty. Started 
in again on my spiral and did the same trick over 
again, not realizing what I was doing wrong. After 
that I flew along straight for a minute until I had time 
to work out what was wrong and then did my spiral 
all right and have done a number of others since. It 
gives you a great deal of confidence and makes flying 
much more pleasant, to find that you can do this kind 
of thing so easily. One is of course always careful not 
to try any unusual manoeuvres unless one is so high 
that a fall of a couple of hundred metres more or less 
will not make any difference. Provided you are high 
enough you do not care much what the machine does 
and it is a great comfort to begin to get the feeling 
that no matter what happens you can come out right 
side up. There is nothing the matter with my heart 
I guess, as I purposely came down three thousand 
metres in five minutes the other day and did not feel 
it at all. 

Plessis-Belleville. July 13, 1917. 

I reached Plessis-Belleville last Sunday and am now 

going in to Paris for the big celebration tomorrow on 

Bastille Day. There is to be another grand parade of 

all the allied troops like the one last year, but this year 



24 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

we hear that there will also be an American contingent. 
Both Chadwick and 1 were offered the chance of flying 
from Plessia to Paris tomorrow and circling over the 
city at fche time of the parade as a part of the per- 
formance, but as we had both received a permission 
to go and see the parade, He, from the ground, we 
declined the chance lo fly. 1 have seen Paris from the 
Eiffel Towci- and it would not be much fun simply 
flying over high in formation and then flying back to 
Plessis again. There is much more of interest to see on 
I he ground. 

Plessis-Belleville is one of the great French distribut- 
ing stations for pilots going to the front. We are sent 
here for some further training which usually occupies 
about two weeks. 1 have not had much further trouble 
since" my smash at Avoid and was declared available 
and ready for the front after three days at Plessis. 
Chadwick and I are the next two pilots on the list and 
we shall therefore probably be off to the front in three 
or four days. 1 had hoped to remain longer at Plessis 
and get in some more practice, but I am glad to get 
through in one way as it will enable me to go in the 
same escadrille* as Oliver Chadwick. He is the best 
man 1 know in the organization and we get along very 
well together. We asked to be put in the same squad- 
ron as it would be rather lonely for one American to be 
by himself in a French escadrille. To what escadrille 
we shall be sent and io what section of the front, we 
do not as yet know. The captain at Plessis said he 
would put us together and we also hope to be able to 
get M with us. 

You will probably be surprised that I am going to 
* Squadron. 



IN THE SCHOOLS 25 

the front so soon. It is sooner than I had expected 
but I am glad of the opportunity to fight with the 
French, before we are transferred to the U. S. forces, 
which I think will be soon. 

Plessis-Belleville. July 15, 1917. 

At last I have a little while in which to write you 
something about what I have been doing lately. I am 
not now really at Plessis, but am sitting in the garden 
of an inn in the town of Ermenonville which is^about six 
or seven kilometres from Plessis. Chadwick and I 
strolled over here for lunch and have been writing some 
letters ever since. The town is chiefly famous as the 
place where Jean Jacques Rousseau died and is buried. 
Also there are several fine chateaux nearby and a won- 
derful big old estate called the "Domaine de Chalis." 
There is the ruin of a beautiful old castle on it and the 
place is now kept as a museum by the "Institut de 
France." I would like to know something of its his- 
tory, but have not been able to discover anything as 
yet. The grounds are very beautiful and have the 
most complete system of artificial ponds and lakes. 
They are now so old that you would never know that 
they were artificial, were it not for the way in which 
they are connected up at different levels. Chadwick 
and I took a long walk through the place the other day. 

I have spent considerable time in walking about the 
country in the various places where I have been. 
Physical health is of course of prime importance in 
this business and I think the time is well spent. I 
have also spent a good deal of time in another way 
which I do not think nearly as profitable, namely, in 
keeping a diary. I bought a good sized one as soon as 



26 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

l arrived and have kept it faithfully ever since. I 
think a diary in which one merely puis down in out- 
line what <>nc docs each day, is very tiresome both for 
the keeper and anyone who might afterwards look at 
it. There should certainly l>c included Borne thoughts 
on various topics as they arise, but to keep such a 
diary which [sat all complete, involves the expenditure 
of a greal deal of time, and also a great deal of repeti- 
tion of what 1 write home to you in my letters. It 
seems to me that it will l>c better to write more letters 

home, and if they arc fairly complete and you save 

them, they will Berve the purpose of a diary. From 
(his day henceforth therefore, no more diary, When 1 

get to t ho front and am flying every day, 1 shall have 

even less spare time than l have now and l prefer to 
spend it learning how to get the Boohe. 1 would like 

to make myself proficient enough to warm up a few o\' 
Kaiser Bill's aviators without having them o\o the same 

to me. Better a live aviator with a whole skin than a 
dead one with a complete diary. 

Pan was greal fun and a most delightful place. You 
will soon have the postals 1 sent which will show you 
what the country is like better than I could describe it. 
One afternoon just before I left, I was up 2800 metres 

with two other machines, doing some "vol de groupe"* 

work. Down below there was a ha.e which allowed 
you to see the ground under you very well, but which 
in the distance appeared solid. We were just at the 
top oi the base and the air above was as clear as crystal 
and freezing cold. Fifty kilometres away rose- the 
towering snow covered peaks of the Pyrenees, but they 
appeared very close in the clear thin air. The ha.-.e 

* IVrmntion iking. 



IN THE SCHOOLS 27 

completely hid all the lower portions of the mount: iij is 
and as this haze in the distance very much resembles 
water, it seemed exactly as though one w;is in a boat 
looking at a chain of rocky islands rising out of a win- 
ter sea. A very fine sight, but .'is one is within 60 
metres of several other machines in vol de groupe, 
and as it is necessary to maintain that relative posi- 
tion, one has not a great deal of time to be gaping at 
the scenery. This kind of work is good fun and of 

Course very important, as machines no Longer go out 
alone at the front except in the case of a few very skil- 
ful and experienced pilots. The flying is generally in 

groups of four or five, the reason being both for the pro- 
tection of the hunters and to make surer of the hunted. 
The idea seems to he to try to find one machine by itself 
or to manoeuvre one of a group until it is out of I ouch 
with its fellows, and then the whole ^an^ jumps on tin; 

one unfortunate "isoleV * Hardly seems a square 

deal, hut after all, the aim is to put as many of the other 
fellow's machines out of business as possible* The 
vol de groupe work at Pau was done on Nieuporls of 
a type now in use at the front, having 15 sq. metres of 

wing surface, no II. J*, motor and making a little better 

than 100 miles per hour. The Nieuports here at 1 lef ifl 
are of the same type. I have also been flying a good 
deal here in the 140 EL J'. Spad which makes a little 
better than 115 miles per hour. The new 200 H. 1*. 
Spad of which there are not as yet a great many at the' 
front, makes ahout 125 miles per hour, which is moving 
aIon<r pretty lively. 

I am enclosing you a letter which ( 'hadwick wrote me 
when he was at Pau and 1 was still at Avord. It will 
* Solitary machine. 



28 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

bell you something of the work there. The monitor 
whoso death he mentions killed himself doing a quick 
turn olose to the ground. Be slipped off on a wing 
and struck before he could right himself. The great 
danger to the experts is that they get to dunking there 
is nothing they cannot do. I make a practice of never 
doing anything out of the ordinary until 1 am at least 

■100 metres lip and hop* 4 to be able to force myself to 
keep (his rule. Then if any I lung goes wrong you 
can fall a couple of hundred metres without getting 

into trouble. We have young pilots here who try to 

show off by doing queer things just as they are rising. 

They remind me of the "expert" shot, who nourishes 
a gun about his head and Looks down the muzzle. 
The two types are about the same and are riding for a 
fall sooner or later. 

After finishing the Spiral work at Pan we did five 

hours of vol de groupe ami then went io the class of 
acrobacy. When you arrive at the acrobacy hangars, 

the head mechanic greets you with a board on which 
is a long list of lines to be paid by the pilots for the 
benefit Of the mechanics. For instance bad landing 
50 centimes; landing the machine on its back. 3 francs; 
completely wrecking a machine , r ) francs; putting your 

lunch in the machine, 1 franc; and many others. I 
caused loud shouts of glee by inadvertently (?) sitting 
in the monitor's special rocking chair from which he 
watches the acrobacy. This was chalked up at 1 franc, 
but was all they got against me I am glad to say. We 
only got about one hour of acrobacy at Pan, three 
Bights of about 20 minutes each. The monitor first 
puts you in a machine on the ground, tells you what to 
do in order to perform the various evolutions, makes 



IN TEE SCHOOLS 29 

you go through the motions, and then sends you up to 
perform while everybody else stands around on the 
ground and watches. The machines in this class are 
in the finest possible condition so as to avoid as much 
as possible the danger of breaking from undue strains 
put upon them by green pilots learning to do the 
stunts. The wing surface; is only 13 sq. metres and 
they are I think the smallest biplane in existence. The 
Nieuports at the front have 15 sq. metres and the Spad 
more still. The 13 metre handles very quickly and 
having such small wings is less subject to strain and 
breaking. 

The first thing we had to do was the much talked of 
" voile." The English call it a nose spin and the Ameri- 
cans a tail spin. You shut off the motor, put the 
machine into a loss of speed, throw all the controls to 
one side and it starts falling head first at the same time 
spinning very rapidly. The nose of the plane turns 
almost as though on a pivot while the; tail describes 
circles. The machine falls vertically but does not spin 
vertically on its nose, on the contrary, as it turns, its 
directional axis makes an an^l* 1 of about seventy de- 
grees with the normal line of flight of the plane when 
flying level. To straighten out you simply put your 
controls in the centre, the machine stops spinning and 
dives straight for the ground and it is then very easy 
to pull it up straight and put on the motor. The vrille 
is very spectacular but in reality is extremely simple. 
The pilot does a few simple things which are hard to 
do wrong, and the machine does the rest. Simple as 
the manoeuvre is, it has been the cause of a great many 
deaths, but there is no excuse for so many men being 
killed in doing their first vrille. The reason seems to 



80 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

be that they hear other green pilots talking .about it 
until it gets on their nerves and then when they have 
started to do the vrille, they get excited and forget 

what tO do in order to OOme out. [f you do not put 

your controls in the centre the machine will keep on 
vrilling until i1 hits the ground. I have personally 

seen .several ninehines fall this way and the men were 
always killed. 

'The vrille got its had name in the early days of fly- 
ing, for the old-type machines, once in one, would not 

as a rule come out QO mat ha- what the pilot did. As a. 
matter o( fact there Is nothing hard or dangerous about 
it in a strong modern machine. If you have the motor 
running open VOU can only do a vrille for a very short 
time for you will soon get spinning si> fast that the 

wings will tear off. 'This frequently happens when a 

pilot is killed in a light. "With the motor off or slowed 

down all the way, a ii,ood machine will vrille indefinitely 

without breaking. All young pilots should I think bo 
taught how \o go into and come out o( a vrille before 
attempting any other forms o( aerobacy, for in at- 
tempting to do some other stunt they will often get 

mixed up and unintentionally tall into a vrille. If 

however they already know how to do a vrille they 
will realise it the instant their machine starts into 
one and will be able to straighten out without ditlieulty. 

The afternoon l arrived at Pan a French lieutenant 

evidently lost his head with the result that he started 
his vrille at 1500 metres and only ended it when he hit 
the ground, losing his life also. A machine in a vrille 
looks very much like a leaf falling off a tree. When 
you come out headed for the ground you are of course 
going very fast, much faster than the machine would 



IN THE SCHOOLS 31 

fly on the level. The second time I tried it I thought 
I would try and count how many turns I made, and 
therefore got my eye on a big clump of woods under 
me. I counted the first time all right, but after that 
she went around so fast that the woods began to look 
like the blades of an electric fan, i. e., all woods, so I 
gave up that count as a bad job. Have done a num- 
ber of others since and it is really very good fun. In 
the Spad you fall just as fast but do not twist so quickly, 

so that the sensation is pleasanter. A new pilot doing 

his first vrille is told to start it at 1500 metres, keep his 
eye on his altimetre, and come out after he has fallen 
200 metres. This gives him lots of time to try again 
if he does not get his controls in the centre the first 
time. 

The other things we had to do were vertical "vir- 
ages," * which look easy but are in reality much the 
hardest of all to do properly; "renvcrsements," f and 
"tournants." J 

To execute a renvcrsement you pull your machine up 
a little into a climbing angle, put all your controls 
hard to the side on which you wish to turn and at the 
same time shut down the motor. This causes the 
machine to turn sharply over sideways and brings it 
out on its nose but facing in the opposite direction. 
You then open up the motor and level the machine 
out agaill by pulling in on your elevating controls. 
The result is the quickest possible; way in which to 
make a 180 degree turn. If you begin by pulling the 

plane up at an angle of 15 degrees from the horizontal 

you will be slightly on your back just after the turn, 
the turn being made both on the lateral and the dircc- 

* Turns. | Iinnnlniaiiu LuriiH. J Barrel rolls. 



82 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

tional a\is o\' the machine, that is to say sideways and 
not over baokwards as in the loop. The same ma- 
noeuvre may be carried out without tirst, pulling the 
plane into a olimbing angle but will in this case result 
in the loss of about fifty metres of height. By olimb- 
ing a little first or "looming," as it is called in aviation 
alangj a renversement may be executed with the loss of 
little or no altitude. 

To do a tournant the controls arc handled in much 
the same way as for the renversement but the movement 
of them is accentuated and instead of straightening out 
after turning L80 degrees, you allow the machine to 
make a complete turn, rolling over on its back and then 
continuing right side up in its original direction, Both 

the tournant ami the renversement may be done With- 
out slowing down the motor all the way and when done 

with the motor on are quicker and prettier to look at 
but they are also harder to control si> exactly and 
Subject the machine to a good ileal of strain which 
seems unnecessary. 

As they would only give us about an hour of acro- 
baoy in all at Pan, we had no time to do more than try 
each manoeuvre out a few times and see how it should 
lie done. Since then 1 have had another hour and a 
half oi aorobacy here in the Spad and have learned to 
execute some o( the stunts properly but am still in need 
o( a great deal of practice. The machines here how- 
ever are old ones which have been sent back to be 
used up. being no longer tit for service at the front. 
It is therefore not safe to do anything but ordinary 
flying in them as the wings will not stand it. You can 
see the ends of the wings wobbling with the vibrations 
of the motor in some of them. When we get to the 



IN THE SCHOOLS 33 

front and have our own machine, a new one in fine con- 
dition, there will then be a chance to do a lot more 

practising. There is only one Spud hero on which we 
are allowed to do acrobacy and as there are a good 
many pilots, one (Joes not often get a chance to use it. 
Personally I shall be glad to get to the front where I 
shall always have my own machine and become thor- 
oughly familiar with it. There is always of course a 
certain amount of danger from school machines which 
an; being continually abused by green pilots. By the 
time you get this letter, however, my schooling will 
all be behind me and I shall have been several weeks at 
the front. There is where the real schooling begins. 
You can fly to your heart's content and do all the 
practising you want and I hope to get in a great deal 
before taking on any Boches. 

I told you that they refused to let me go to the 
machine gun school at Cazau. After Chad wick was 
there, an order came down from the colonel in com- 
mand of the schools, directing that no more pilots wen; 
to go to Cazau. His reason was that the school is 
intended for the training of aeroplane mitrailleurs* who 
shoot from the two-seater machines with movable guns, 
and is only amusing, but not beneficial, for pilots who 
are to use a fixed gun on a one-seater. " I don't agree 
with him on this and neither do the U. S. aviation offi- 
cers with whom I have talked, but "orders is orders." 
It is just as important to know where to shoot with a 
fixed gun in order to hit a moving mark, as it is with a 
movable gun. Also it seems to me of the greatest 
importance to know in what position is it most difficult 
for the other fellow to shoot you. A great deal of our 

* Macliinc-guunern. 



34 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

work will consist in attacking two-seater machines and 
the harder the shot you can give your opponent, the 
better. We got a little machine gun work at Pau on 
t In" ground, aiul here I have so far had four flights of 
about fifteen minutes each, shooting at a round spot 
of sand on the ground, with a machine gun from a 
Nieuport, The small fast chasse machines, one of 
which I shall have at the front, are all one-seaters in 
the French army and your machine gun is fixed. I 
think the French make a great mistake in giving so 
little shooting practice io their pilots and that it is 
very poor economy to hurry up a man's training 
by cutting down on such an important part of it. Once 
we reach our escadrille at the front, however, I think 
we will be given a good ileal of additional training. 

This is about everything there is to tell you with re- 
gard to the training both here and at Pau. Chadwick 
and I are now merely awaiting our orders and getting 
in as much work as we can in the meantime. They 
are evidently holding us until they can put us together 
in the same escadrille as we asked. 1 now speak enough 
French to carry on an ordinary conversation and ex- 
pect to have little difficulty with it after one month 
where I shall speak practically nothing else. 

Do not worry about me just because I am at the 
front instead of still in the schools. As I told you in my 
last letter, two-thirds of the deaths in the French avia- 
tion at Plessis and the front, i. c, in the wax zone, dur- 
ing the month of May. were from accident. You would 
not wonder at this if you could see the extraordinary 
things some of the French pilots do. Two poor fellows 
fell in a Farman and were burned to a crisp the day I 
reached here, just because the pilot did something in 



IN THE SCHOOLS 35 

utter defiance of all the rules of flying. He pulled his 
machine up until it lost its speed and naturally he fell; 
although he righted her again about thirty metres 
from the ground, he then proceeded to make the same 
mistake over again and when the machine struck the 
ground she immediately went up in flames. Even after 
he saw he was going to smash, if he had had presence 
of mind enough to cut off his motor, there would proba- 
bly have been no fire. Over and over again I have 
seen machines smashed to bits, but as the pilot cut off 
his motor first, no fire resulted. 

When a man does in aviation what the Farman pilot 
I mentioned above did, he might just as well take an 
automobile and run it head first into a wall or off a 
bridge and expect not to be hurt. I should say at a 
guess that the deaths in the French schools at least 
equal those at the front and more pilots kill them- 
selves needlessly than the Germans ever shoot. No 
Americans have been killed in the schools since I came 
over and the Frenchmen who come to untimely ends 
by accident, are usually officers who are either too old 
or otherwise unadapted to aviation. There seem to be 
a good many students of this kind who are given a 
chance at aviation, as a reward of merit, but who are 
totally incapable of being made into good pilots. 

I mentioned above the Frenchman who fell in a 
vrille the day I reached Pau. Two days later we all 
got "repos"* in the afternoon in order to attend his 
funeral. All the pilots in the school and a large num- 
ber of mechanicians marched behind the hearse through 
the streets of Pau, in the regulation French military 
funeral. This man happened to be a Protestant and 
* Leave. 



36 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

after the service in the church, we all marched on again 
to the cemetery. In the church two soldiers in full 
uniform, steel helmets and fixed bayonets, stood guard 
on each side of the casket during the reading of the 
service. At the grave, after the minister had finished, 
the captain of the school made quite a long speech and 
was in turn followed by some old duffer who repre- 
sented some Order of which I could not discover the 
name. This seemed to me pretty trying on the de- 
ceased's two sisters and brother, the only members of 
his family present, but the rest of the proceeding was 
even worse. These two poor women, who seemed com- 
pletely broken up and were sobbing continuously, first 
had a long walk through the streets after their brother's 
body and then, after he had been laid in the vault, they 
stood side by side under a nearby shed while about 
sixty pilots and instructors lined up and filing past, 
shook each by the hand. It may seem a strange com- 
parison, but the hand shaking reminded me of a crowd 
of wedding guests filing past the bride and groom. It 
must be an ordeal for the family at such a time and it 
is hard to see what comfort such a formality can be to 
anyone in trouble. 

There was one other acrobatic stunt we learned at 
Pau which I did not tell you about and that is what is 
known as a wing slip. You put the machine sideways 
in a vertical position with the motor running at about 
two-thirds of its normal speed in order to prevent the 
plane from turning on its nose and diving. With the 
aid of the motor and by manipulating the controls, 
you can then make the machine fall sideways and it at 
the same time goes forward due to the pull of the 
motor. I generally start this manoeuvre by bracing 



IN THE SCHOOLS 37 

one shoulder under the edge of the body alongside of 
my seat. Otherwise when you turn her to 90°, you 
fall up against the side and your belt is the only 
thing that holds you. Also sometimes she slips over 
a little on her back and you get an unpleasant sensa- 
tion of commencing to fall out although of course the 
belt would only let you leave the seat a few inches. 
The greatest possible speed can be attained in this way 
as the wings offer practically no resistance to the air 
and the only thing holding you back is the wind re- 
sistance against the side of the body of the machine. 
It is in this wing slip that you get a real impression of 
speed and you certainly do travel. The wind whistles 
through the wires and you fall a thousand feet in an 
incredibly short time. A conservative estimate of 
the speed would be I think 200 miles an hour, at least 
as fast as a man would fall through the air and infinitely 
faster than any machine will fly on the level. To 
come out of a wing slip you simply dive in the same 
direction that you are falling and then pull up straight. 
The stunt may of course be varied by slipping at a 
more gradual angle instead of coming down vertically 
and in this modified form is sometimes used as a means 
of losing height preparatory to landing. 

I don't think it will take me long to settle down to 
the law again when the war is over. This sort of thing 
makes you appreciate the blessings of home and I 
shall be so glad to get back, that it will take quite 
some war to get me away again. 

Plessis-Belleville. July 24, 1917. 
We have just received our orders for which we have 
been waiting and Oliver and I leave to-morrow for the 



38 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

front. We have both been ready to go for the past ten 
days, but they have been holding us up for some rea- 
son or other. We asked to be sent out together and 
our request was granted and I am also glad to say that 
we are being sent to the crack group of the French 
army, the one in which Guynemer and many other 
famous French aces are. It looks also as though we 
were going to get Spads, the best chasse machine that 
the French have. It is of course a single-seater com- 
bat machine. I do not know whether we shall be in 
the same escadrille with Guynemer or not, but do 
imi believe so, as his is supposed to be the best 
escadrille in the service and I should hardly think 
that they would take in a couple of green-horns. A 
"groupe de combat" comprises four escadrilles. We 
are in the same group with the cracks, but I do not 
know what escadrille we shall be assigned to. Our 
location will be along the north coast near Dunkirk. 
Unless all the omens fail there is going to be quite a 
bit of excitement in that region very shortly and we 
are very lucky to have an opportunity to get in it. 



ESCADRILLM N. 73 




Insignia of Escadrille N. 73 



Bergues. July 28, 1917. 

Just arrived at the front today and am in Escadrille 
N. 73, Groupe de Combat 12. The group is otherwise 
known as "Le Groupe Brocard" after its famous com- 
mander Brocard, who is one of the great French air- 
men. One of the escadrilles of the group is N. 3, more 
generally known as "Les Cigognes" or "The Storks" 
when translated into English. The name comes from 
their insignia, a stork painted on the sides of the fuse- 
lage* of each machine, and this squadron is easily the 
best known in the French aviation. The whole group 
carries the stork as its insignia, the bird being placed 
in different positions to distinguish the several esca- 
drilles, and consequently the entire group is often re- 
ferred to as "Les Cigognes." The original "Cigognes," 
however, which has gained such a wide reputation, is 
Escadrille N. 3. 

This group is the most famous fighting one in the army 
and admittedly the best, so you can see that Chadwick 
and I were very lucky to get in it. It contains more 
famous fighting pilots than any of the other French 
flying units, one in particular Guynemer, who has to 
date brought down about 48 Boches officially and many 
more unofficially. To count on a man's record, a 
victory has to be seen and reported by two French 
observers on the ground or some such rule as this, so that 
a Boche shot down far behind the lines where no one 
but his comrades see him fall, does not help a pilot's 
total. Last evening Guynemer got one 25 kilometres 
in the German territory and as I sit here on the aero- 

* Body. 
41 



42 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

drome he has just gotten into his machine and started 
off for the lines in search of another victim. 

Chadwick and I and two other Americans who came 
with us, are the first Americans to be sent to this 
group. An escadrille or squadron in the French ser- 
vice numbers about fifteen pilots and machines. We 
are indeed fortunate to get in this crack group, but as 
it has suffered rather heavily lately, they had to fill 
up, and so we got our chance. This morning the 
captain of one of the escadrilles * was killed and our 
own chief f was shot down with three bullets in his 
back but will pull through all right. He was shot down 
last night also, but only his machine was damaged. 
He went up again this morning and while attacking one 
Boche, another got him from behind. He has 17 
Boches to his credit officially, so I guess he is entitled 
to the rest that his wounds will give him. The cap- 
tain who was killed had gotten seven German machines 
officially, so we are sort of out of luck to-day, losing 
two such good men. It seems to come in bunches that 
way for some reason or other. 

It looks as though I shall see lots of service and have 
a chance to learn a great deal before the time conies to 
transfer to the U. S. Army, if it does come. We hope 
to be able to stay where we are for a considerable 
length of time and that we shall not be forced to leave 
this French unit before we have learned a lot more 
about military aviation and have been able to make 
some return for all the training that we have received. 
This group is usually, like the Foreign Legion, moved 

* Captain Auger of Escadrille N. 3. 

t Captain (then Lieutenant) Deullin, originally of Escadrille N. 3, 
but at this time commanding Escadrille N. 73. 




aptai 



ges < myn 



Taken at St. Pol-sur-Mer near Dunkirk, France, in September, I'M?, 
short!} before his death. Captain Guynemer, who was af this time 
i in- French ace of aces, Is standing In our of the hangars of his squad- 
ron with his machine "Vieus Charles" showing In the background. 
The machine is dismantle I for repairs. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 43 

about to the particular locality in which there is going 
to be an attack, so we shall see plenty of action. It 
was for instance at the battles of Verdun and the Somme 
and it seems that it is usually in the thick of it. For 
this reason it is obvious that I shall not be able to tell 
you where I am and must be very careful what I write. 
Since beginning this letter I have been talking to one 
of the officers about the censorship and have, as you 
will notice, been doing some censoring on my own 
account. No details that could possibly be of any mili- 
tary importance, so you will have to be content with 
much briefer and more general letters than I have been 
writing heretofore. 

You will be glad to know that I got a S.P.A.D.* 
machine, the kind I hoped to get. Also I shall have 
a chance to do a good deal more practising before 
starting in in earnest. The officers are as usual very 
nice and willing to help in any way they can. We 
get a great deal of advice and information here which 
I have been anxious to get from the beginning. When 
the time comes to make our first trip in search of a 
real live Boche, we ought to feel able to give him some 
sort of a run for his money. Here's hoping that my 
first adversary is a young pilot like myself. Should 
hate to bump into a German ace for a starter. 

Bergues, July 29, 1917. 
Guynemer came back from his sortie last night 
having sent one more Boche to his happy hunting 
grounds in flames. This wonderful French pilot seems 
absolutely untiring and his skill must be something un- 
canny. Approximately 50 Boche officially means about 

* Society Pour l'Aviation et ses Derives. 



44 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

75 machines brought down altogether, and as most of 
his victims have been two-seaters, this represents I 
suppose something like 125 German pilots and ma- 
chine gunners, observers, etc, disposed of by one 
Frenchman. You can imagine how much nerve, skill 
and endurance it bakes to accomplish this feat and live 
to tell the tale. 1 was much surprised when I saw 
him for the first time. He is small and very slight, 

more like cousin T than anyone else I can think of 

whom we know, indeed ho looks something like him. 
lie is L"2 years old and without question the greatest 
individual fighter (his war has produced. There are 
many things about him which T should like to tell you 
but which I am at present forbidden to talk about and 
which will therefore have to wait until later on when 
they are still interesting but no longer of military im- 
portance. 

It is quite a sight toseeabunch of the "Storks" start- 
ing o\'\' at crack of dawn for a Sight over the lines, or 
to See them coming home to roost, at dusk. One sees 

here probably (lie finest flying in the world and it will 
be a, great advantage to us young ones, who as yet are 
not real pilots by a long shot, to be able to watch these 
men work who really know the game. One is naturally 
anxious to get started, but 1 shall take your advice and 
go easy until 1 feel able to take care ot myself. As you 
say, rashness only results in throwing yourself away to 
QO purpose and foolhardiness is certainly no essential 
of bravery. As far as one can discover, the most 
successful men have been those who have known when 
not to sail in and take too great chances. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 45 

BerguBS, July 30, 1917. 
Our machines have not yet arrived and we shall 
probably have to wait some little time longer, so 
Chadwick and I have as yet done no flying since reach- 
ing the front. There is however plenty to do in the 
way of studying so the time does not hang heavily on 
our hands. There are maps of the locality to learn, 
types of Bochc machines to familiarize oneself with and 
all kinds of things like this to keep one fully occupied. 
It is however irritating to be so near the scene of action 
and yet so far. When I was in the schools I used to 
think that I would wish I was back home again when 
the time came to go out over the lines. Maybe I still 
shall feel that way and my present enthusiasm is 
merely due to my excessive greenness. Just now, 
however, with the big guns roaring all day and all 
night in the distance and all of our companions in the 
fray except a few of us new ones who have no machines 
as yet, it makes you wish you could go out and get 
in it. The guns sound like distant thunder. We arc 
too far away to hear any but the big ones, but the ex- 
plosions remind me more than anything else of the 
noise made by the paddle wheels of a steamer on the 
river on a quiet evening. You know how they sound 
in the distance as each blade hits the water. The 
noise of the guns has of course no such regular time as 
the sound of the paddle wheels, but the shots are 1 
should say, considerably closer together than the blows 
of the paddles on the water. Remember that this 
represents only the big guns and that we are too far 
away to hear the 75's at all, and you will get some idea 
of how much fun the Bochcs are having at the other end 
where the projectiles are falling on their blessed heads. 



40 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

We are very comfortably housed hero in a big tent 
and "everything in the garden is lovely" except the 
mosquitoes, which are quite numerous and at least 
three times the size of Jersey's best. They are the 
first 1 have struck bo far in France, but they arc making 
up for lost time* They are honestly half as big as 
what we call a mosquito hawk and have a beak like a 
great blue heron. The first one I saw I mistook for 
one. One bit me on the right eye-lid the first night 
and T could hardly get my eye open in the morning. 
Then another one, who evidently saw me and had his 
eye Tor symmetry shocked by the sight, bit me on the 
other eye-lid the next night, so that yesterday my eyes 
about matched. Last night I fooled them by sleeping 

with my head under the covers and to-day my visage 
does not quite so nearly resemble the morning after a 
prize-fight. 

A funny thing happened here a couple of days ago 
while Some of the men were practising bomb dropping 
at a target on (he living field. The Spad can be fitted 
to carry a couple of small twenty-pound bombs which 
are dropped from a low altitude on (roons and convoys 
on the roads behind the enemy linos. The bombs in 
question were tilled simply with a small bursting charge 
and some stuff thai would make a smoke, so that the 
aviator could see where they fell. One fellow let one 
go from about 3500 feci, but he had waited too long 
and it landed on a road within six feet of an English 
"Tommy" who was taking a quiet stroll. If it had 

ever hit him it would have pushed him out of sight. 
Everybody thought it a huge joke except the 
"Tommy," who was bored io death (or almost) ami 
could not see anything funny about it. It is amusing 



ESCADRILLE N. 7:5 47 

to note the difference in the popular attitude towards 
such an episode, here and at home. With us the result 
would probably have been a law suit and a long argu- 
ment on the legal theory of injury resulting from 
fright alone without physical contact. 

You will be glad to hear that my commander, 
Commandant Broeard, seems from what little I have 
seen of him, to be the finest French officer I have yet 
met. lie is a real man himself and takes that personal 
interest in the welfare and ability of his men, which 
means so much. It is quite evident that he means his 
men to know their business thoroughly before he sends 
them out. 

I think Aunt K might like this place. My tent 

is in a field next to some farm buildings and the pasture 
is full of horses, cows, and three or four big fat sows. 
The latter are very inquisitive and vvcry now and (hen 
try to come in and pay us a visit, but a heavy army 
shoe, well placed in the spare ribs, generally results in 
indignant grunts and a hasty withdrawal. We came 
in one day to find them all asleep in our tent. One 
old lady had her head in my suitcase where I keep my 
clean linen. She had first pushed open the lid and 
eaten a supply of chocolate I had secreted then;. My 
laundry bill the following week amounted to twelve 
francs. We also have a large supply of dogs who travel 
with us. Five fat puppies run about the kitchen- 
dining-room tent and lick the plates and pots and pans. 
One is called "Spad" and another "( 'ontart," the latter- 
being the French expression meaning "throw on the 
switch of a motor." The other names I have not yet 
mastered. 

At each advance in my training the food has im- 



48 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

proved until here it is first rate. As for my health, it 
has never been better, and my spirits are excellent. 
The work is interesting and I try to make it a rule to 
do little thinking about what I might be doing if it 
were not for this damn war. Do not worry if my letters 
are irregular as the censorship is now severe and will, 
I fear, subject the mails to long delays. 

Beroues, August 10, 1917. 

Have at last had a couple of flights over the lines 
and will try to tell you something about it, but in such 
general terms that the censor will not object. After 
almost incessant rain, fog, and very low clouds for ten 
days, it has finally cleared up enough in the last two 
days to allow the machines to go out for at least a part 
of each day. Yesterday morning I had my first trip 
out over the Boche lines and as the patrol of which I 
was a part, was quite a low one, I could see the whole 
show and you never saw such a mess in your life. At 
times we were as low as S00 metres and on our way home 
went down to GOO metres over the artillery where we 
could plainly see and hear the guns blazing away. 
Higher up, one can see the gun flashes, but the noise 
of one's motor drowns the sound of the shots. 

I do not think there is much use in trying to describe 
what the battlefields look like. They beggar descrip- 
tion, and you can get a clearer idea from the pic- 
tures in the "Illustrated London News." The ground 
about the trenches and in fact the country for several 
miles en each side of the lines, reminds me more of 
some of these swamps which had been burnt over by a 
forest fire, which we saw on the way in to the Rangeley 
Lakes in Maine, than anything else I can think of. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 49 

I know nothing else which gives an idea of the utter 
waste and destruction. The ground itself looks much 
like one of those hard lumps you sometimes find on the 
river shore which resemble a petrified sponge, or per- 
haps a piece of slag from an iron foundry, or again a 
photograph of the craters on the moon. For miles 
the shell holes are so close that they merge, and the 
earth is chewed up until the surface also somewhat 
resembles the top of a bowl of stiff oatmeal. Every 
little village and farm house is a wreck, the roofs, where 
any are left, are full of shell holes; but a few fragments 
of walls represent what is left of most of them. Some 
of the larger towns are just a dark smudge with a 
gutted ruin sticking up here and there. 

This morning I went out on a patrol at daylight, a 
couple of thousand metres up this time, and the sight 
which greeted us as we approached the lines I shall 
never forget. It was much more remarkable than 
yesterday from a spectacular point of view. The sun 
was not yet up and the flashes from the guns, which 
you can see even in broad daylight, were very brilliant 
in the early dawn. There was quite a lively bombard- 
ment going on and the guns made me think of the fire- 
flies on the lawn at home of a hot summer night, and I 
might say that I have never seen the fireflies thicker. 
This from our guns behind our own lines and the Boche 
fireflies at work further on but not so numerous. 
Over it all the drifting smoke of the battle and above, 
all the way from 1000 to 5000 metres, flocks of planes 
circling about. Scattered about the planes the little 
puffs of smoke from the shells of the anti-aircraft guns 
of each side shooting at the other fellows' birds. Some 
kilometres behind the lines on each side a row of 



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( 



in 1,1k- WM Blld ";).j')/j" U,'/n A foj //-'-, fffeffl IN 
tin: Wo'Jf/.'f'K nrouri'l up i)j</< in id' I / U) thff/W thfl 

|Ufl <,fl Mj'j/ /.'i/-;", If" I III •.«■ . ;i. Iil'i'.i/.. Ml "''• 

fijvt day -'I 'I-' •'!'' " ' ' -'", ami ' ; r/tlw i 

-,f Hal U i / //In' d I li'-'il'J pri I- / i hw\ "■.< I- 

i(,i.i,< ... v,t,f\\t i /'/i mon: Uifuj i do and i thinfc tliAi In 

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«,f if,' fi work »ii' n : ww fx i wrx that 

f.fi«: y ;u< not p.irnply a nation tu\f\t'A, \mi to ■/• I / I .•• 
Of <l</il ■„ 

!{>.»../, 1017 

On my fir*t trip out ov<rr th< li//< , Mom/; 

I \,y pluj/j/inj/ ;». f*ull«:t Uiroui 
daring that ■/>" 

orttot that J /jt./.j'. muMt \m to n flood 

Probably but I'Ji bi 

|0W " d'jll'.l. J)'/!': 

at all, and tbi i 

It v/Jj'-n y. 
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would 

•//<:/«: ';; Ul !tt ltl : : ; lh <\ :,.!>...<!/ 1:;,..:.: r.'.v/-;./, ;;.f,0'jt on 



52 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

the roads. It is remarkable to see the fields cultivated 
right up to the blasi ed area and many of them with a 
good sprinkling of shell holes. There is one town,* 
the name of which I had often seen in the communiqu6s 
before I left home, which lies in the centre of the 
area over which we patrol. It was I suppose half the 
size of Andalusia village, but like all little French 
towns the houses were set quite close together as in a 
city. This place appeared on my map and although I 
thought I had the spot exactly located and searched 
carefully from only five hundred metres above it, I 
could find no trace of it. I asked a Frenchman and 
he explained the mystery by saying that it had been 
entirely blown off the map. There is absolutely no 
trace of it left that can be distinguished from the sur- 
rounding country. Even several macadamized roads 
which ran through it, are blown out of existence. Since 
the recent heavy rains it is often difficult to tell a 
trench line from a brook, and every shell hole is full 
of water. The ground reminds me also of the mud 
flat next to the wharf at Andalusia after we boys had 
been throwing a lot of rocks in it. The poor devils in 
the trenches must have a nice comfortable time of it. 

Julian Biddle arrived yesterday and has been as- 
signed to this escadrille. He had been sent to another 
group in a different locality, but asked to be sent here 
so as to be with me and they granted his request. I 
am glad he got here. He should make a good pilot. 

You speak about the time when I shall write you an 
account of my first fight. That will probably not be 
for some time to come. We are at first given work 
which is least likely to get us into a real hot aerial battle 

* Bixschoote. 




A J »: i < I smash. 

The pllo< escaped with a few cuts and minus a few teeth. Wreck of an Eng 
lish Hopwlth c: i hcouI machine al si. Pol sur Mer, August, 1917. 




Uned hi> for review 



.I plane of E cadrille X. 7::. 

Vu I •:. I'll . 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 53 

and are instructed to keep out of them as much as 
possible for the time being until we become more pro- 
ficient and accustomed to the work. Of course if a 
comrade was attacked and having trouble one could 
not well stand around and watch him get shot up. 
Young pilots do not however go on excursions far into 
the Boche territory looking for trouble the way some 
of the old hands do. Practice is everything in this 
game as in all others and one is learning something 
every minute spent over the lines. 

Bergues, August 13, 1917. 
Was out again last night after writing and again 
this morning. Nothing much out of the ordinary 
except that the Boche anti-aircraft guns were pretty 
active this morning. I watched the shells bursting 
all around a machine about half a mile from us and the 
pilot doing all kinds of gyrations to throw them off. 
Just about that time a couple went off pretty close to 
me and as I noticed they had my altitude exactly, I quit 
watching the other fellow and started doing a few things 
on my own account. Last evening when we went out 
about six o'clock, one of those black summer thunder 
showers was drifting around. There was a lively 
bombardment going on and part of the battle-field 
was shrouded in semi-darkness. The flashes of the 
guns stood out very vividly and the smoke, mist and 
drifting rain squalls were about all that was needed 
to complete my idea of what the private domains of Old 
Nick probably look like. 

August 14, 1917. 

The King and Queen of Belgium received us here 
yesterday. I was introduced to them both and said 



54 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

a few words to the King. Will write you all about it 
soon but not now. My friend Oliver Chadwick has 
evidently just been killed. We are not absolutely 
sure yet but there is practically no hope. He was the 
best of them all and we have been together all the time 
for months. I had come to know him better than I 
have ever known any other man and he was as fine and 
fearless a Christian gentleman as ever lived. He was 
apparently shot down from 2000 metres in a combat 
and fell inside the German lines over the little de- 
stroyed town I have described. I am glad he died with 
his boots on as he wanted to, but my heart is sick and 
I cannot write you about it till later. 

St. Pol-suk-Mer.* August 21, 1917. 

Just a line to tell you that I am well, but I have so 
many letters to write that you will have to wait until 
next week before I shall be able to write you fully. 
My friend, Oliver Chadwick, was killed by the Boche 
on Tuesday. He sailed in to help out another machine 
that was being attacked and was in turn attacked from 
the rear by two other machines. At least this is what 
happened as far as we can learn. We are not even sure 
that the machine that was brought down in this manner 
was Oliver's, and as it fell in the Boche lines there is 
no way of verifying it, but the evidence is very bad and 
I am afraid there is little hope. There is the barest 
chance that he may be a prisoner, but it is very slim. 

Then on the 18th Julian was killed; so it was a very 
bad week for the Americans here. I am terribly sorry 
about Julian and I naturally feel his loss very keenly 
for we were always very good friends and had had a lot 

* One mile west of Dunkirk. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 55 

of fun together since coming to France. He was an 
excellent pilot in the schools and extremely conscien- 
tious and hard working. He got his military license 
in a remarkably short time and sailed through all the 
tests without the slightest mishap. Once he had had 
time to gain a little experience here at the front I feel 
sure that he would have done very well. Julian and 
Oliver and I might have had some great Boche hunting 
expeditions together if luck had not broken so against 

them. I am glad to say that M arrived here the 

day after Oliver was lost, so I am not left the only 
American in the escadrille. 

St. Pol-sur-Mer. August 24, 1917. 
Got a rainy day to-day and as I have pretty well 
caught up on the writing I told you I had to do, I can 
now drop you a line about what has been going on 
recently. On August 13th we were inspected by the 
King and Queen of Belgium. We all got dressed up 
in our best and stood at attention while the King 
conferred some Belgian decorations on some of the men 
for bravery and the work they had done. I have some 
pictures of Oliver, Julian and myself standing in the 
line of pilots with the King and Queen in front and shall 
send the photos along as soon as I have an opportunity. 
The commandant stopped in front of us and introduced 
us all three to the King and Queen. You see we are the 
first American pilots in the escadrille and therefore 
somewhat of a curiosity so we sometimes receive at- 
tention which our rank would not ordinarily entitle us 
to. Shook hands with them and called them "Sire" 
and "Madame" as per the commandant's previous 
instructions. Had a few words with King Albert, 



56 THE WW OF THE EAGLE 

who said he is hoping for great things when America 
gets her forces over here. Glad to say ho spoke Eng- 
lish as i was seared bo death Lest l might have to talk 
French to them. Kings and telephones get my goat 
when it comes to talking French. I guess little Willie 
Is some pumpkins hobnobbing with royalty and such, 
eh what ! ! The King is a very fine looking man and 
the Queen is most attractive. 

The uexl morning, the 1 4th, Oliver and I were not 
scheduled to By until the afternoon, but as we were 
both anxious to get all the practice possible, we went 
to the field in the morning in the hope that they might 

Deed an extra man. A patrol was just going out and 

being short one man they asked Oliver to till up, I 
saw him off ami was a little disappointed that ho had 
gotten the job instead of my self, as ho already had an 
hour or two more over the lines than I had. lie went 
out with three Frenchmen and never eame back. They 
reported that at about 9.45, shortly after they had 
reached the lines, they lost track of Oliver while ma- 
noeuvring near some clouds. Shortly after lunch we 
received a telephone message that the infantry had 
seen a machine of the type Oliver was flying shot down 
in the eourse o( a combat from about 2000 metres and 
fall about 1200 metres north of Bixschoote on a place 
known as the "Ferine Carnot." According to the 
report, the French machine went to the assistance of 
an F.nglish one that was being attacked by a Roche, 
and at- the same time was itself attacked from the 
rear, by two other Boches. The French machine was 
"uettement descendu" * as they say. and took a sheer 
fall of over 6000 feet until it crashed into the ground. 

* Clearly brought down. 




King Albert of Belgium decorating aviatoi , 

in the group are, be Ide the King Lieutenant 

tenant de La Tour "> Hun , Captain Beurtaiu SI B m Major 
Borcard [commanding " Oroupe de Combat 12 French aviation Berg 
Prance, Vugu I 13 lOl'i The record* <-r enemy planet brought 
down an ;, of the date "i the picture. 




Queen Elizabeth of Belgium getting oui of French plane. 

After a flight .-■• Bergue*, Prance lugust 13, 1917, in the group ari 
Brocard, Queen Elizabeth, and Lieutenant (then Adjutant 
who later became • he ace </i ;,n | 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 57 

I had hoped against hope that there might be some 
mistake, that the machine was merely forced to land 
or perhaps that it was not Oliver's machine at all and 
that he might be only a prisoner. I have been doing 
everything I could think of to get all the detailed in- 
formation possible as it will mean so much to his 
family to know just what happened and whether or 
not he is really dead. The commander has been very 
kind in trying to help me to collect this information, 
but it has seemed almost impossible fco trace what clues 
we have. Where so many thousands are being killed 
and have been for the past three years, a dead man, 
no longer able to help in the fight, is nothing, and men 
busy with the great business of war have no time to 
spend in trying to find one. 

Oliver fell between the lines but very close to the 
Cerman. The recent French advance has however put 
the spot just within our own lines and I wanted to go 
up myself and have a look but it seems impossible. 
I thought perhaps I might be able to find his body or 
the machine or something. Even though I could not 
do this, however, my efforts seem to be bearing fruit 
and there seems to be no longer any doubt that the 
machine was Oliver's. 

To-day I received a photograph of the machine 
taken by a priest attached to the infantry, and also 
some details of what happened when the machine fell. 
It seems that both the Boche and French soldiers 
rushed out of their trenches to try and get the machine, 
and a fight followed in which both were forced to retire. 
The picture was taken after the advance a day or so 
later and shows a tangled mass of wreckage and beside it 
the dead body of a Boche. No trace could be found of 



58 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Oliver's body, but this is easily explained by the fact 
that pilots often have papers on them of military im- 
portance and his body would therefore have been taken 
and searched. This would have been easy for the 
Germans to do at night as the machine was so close 
to their front line trench. I am now trying to get the 
number of the fallen machine and to find some one who 

actually saw it fall. I think then we shall have every- 
thing. What chance h:ts a man who falls like that 
from such a height? 1 have seen the result of a fall 
of one tenth the distance or less, too often not to know. 
1 have a large scale map showing the spot where he 
fell; it will o( course always be impossible to find out 
where he is buried. 

I wish you could have known Oliver Chadwick as I 

am sure he would have appealed to you as he did to me. 

He was the kiud of man that it takes generations to 

make and then you only get them once in a thousand 
times. A man with a great deal of brains, he was also 
a very hard worker and had Learned more about avia- 
tion and made himself into the best pilot I have over 
seen for one o( his experience, lie was one o( the very 
few that 1 have met over here who came over Long be- 
fore America entered the war. simply because he felt 
it was his duty to fight for what he knew was right. 
That was why he was fighting and what he was fully 
prepared to die for. His ideals were of the highest and 
he was morally I think the cleanest man 1 have ever 
known. Physically he had always been a splendid 
athlete and was a particularly tine specimen. Ab- 
solutely fearless and using his brains every minute, 
if he had only had a chance to really get started and to 
gain a little more experience, he should have developed 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 59 

into the best of them nil. Tim Bochc that got him 
certainly did a good job from their point of view, for 
if he had lived long enough to become really proficient, 
they would have known it to their sorrow and I doubt 
if they would ever have gotten him. 

We were in the Law School together but I never saw 
much of him there, as we lived far apart and had a dif- 
ferent set of friends. Since I came over hen; however 
and went to the aviation schools, we had been almost 
constantly together. We had lived together, eaten 
together, flown together and planned all our work to- 
gether. Always a gentleman and thinking of tin; other 
fellow, he was the most congenial man to me that \ 
had ever known. I had come to regard him as my 
best friend and it is astonishing how well you can get 
to know one with whom you work in this business, 
whom you often rely on for your life and who you 
know relies on you in the same way. There is nothing 
I would not have done for Oliver Chadwick and I know 
he would have done the same for me. He was tin; 
finest man of his age that it has ever been my good 
fortune to meet and was my idea of what a gentleman 
should be. I am very glad to have known him and I 
think it did me a great deal of good. When a man of 
this ran; stamp goes down almost unnoticed, it seems, 
it makes one appreciate what this war means. To me 
personally, his death naturally leaves a pretty big hole, 

but I am glad that if Ik; had to die he died fighting ;is 
Ik; wanted to. I know he himself uever expected to 
survive the war, but his only fear was that lie might 
be killed in some miserable accident. 

He was a great favorite with all the instructors both 
because of his amiability and because they could not 



60 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

help but admire his skill and fearlessness. The com- 
mander here regarded him as one of the most courage- 
ous men he had ever had, which is saying a great deal 
in this organization. One of the officers tried to tell 
me that Oliver should not have left his patrol and gone 
to help out the other machine. I think he did exactly 
what he should have done, he could not well stand by 
when he saw a comrade in trouble and leave him to 
shift for himself. What one admires in a man more 
than anything else is the doing of his duty regardless 
of the consequences to himself and this was Oliver all 
over. As soon as I heard what had happened I felt 
sure it was he. My great regret is that I could not 
have been on the same patrol as we usually stuck pretty 
close together and might have been able to help one 
another out. 

Had an interesting experience one day when a 
French barrage fire was in full swing in preparation for 
an attack. I was out on a patrol which happened to 
be a low one, and my leader, a lieutenant, flew entirely 
too low for one's comfort. He got down in the terri- 
tory of the French shells and in a barrage fire they are 
pretty thick. Every few minutes you would run into 
the eddy caused by a shell and your machine would rock 
from side to side and sometimes turn up on edge. 
Once or twice they came close enough to hear them 
screech above the roar of the motor and the machine 
felt as though a giant had taken it and given it a mild 
shaking by the collar, so to speak. As a matter of 
fact we could have done better work flying above the 
trajectory and we served no particular purpose being 
where we were. We were still too high to fear any 
fire from the ground, but in any event I am against 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 61 

taking chances where there is nothing to be gained. 
Seems to me it is just playing into the other fellow's 
hands and I have no desire to start unnecessarily an 
argument with one of our own shells in mid-air. On 
any ordinary day shells in the air, other than anti- 
aircraft, are not thick enough to bother about. 

Another time, a few days ago, I was again up at about 
16,000 feet, when an oil pipe broke and let all the oil 
run out. As there was no way of telling this, it was 
only a few minutes until my motor "grilled." That 
is to say, the bearings burnt out and she stopped as 
suddenly and completely as though I had thrown off 
the switch. As I was on the Boche side of the lines at 
the time, I thought I had better start hiking for my own 
side of the fence "toot sweet." Every day as I had 
been flying back and forth from the lines, I had amused 
myself in looking for allied aviation fields so that in 
case of trouble I would know where to go, if I could not 
get back to my own field. A small fast chasse ma- 
chine is a hard thing to land without upsetting unless 
you have a good place to do it on, and this is es- 
pecially true when the country is wet and full of shell 
holes. I therefore bethought me of a field near a cer- 
tain town* which I knew was the nearest to the lines, 
although I had never been there. It was a long way 
off and I did not think I should be able to reach it, 
but it could do no harm to try, as from very high up 
one cannot make out a suitable place to land anyhow. 
There were too many clouds beneath me to make out 
the town very well, but I knew the general direction 
and started planing that way. When I got through 
the clouds at about 6000 feet up I could see the town 

* Poperinghe, five miles northwest of Ypres, Belgium. 



62 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

and soon the aviation field. Having plenty of height 
it was easy to go there with room to spare and I landed 
without further trouble. 

A motor in the condition of mine means changing it 
and putting in another so there was nothing for it but 
to go back to my base by motor, a distance of some 
thirty miles. What was my surprise to find that some 
of our Philadelphia doctors were serving at a field 
hospital near where I landed. After telephoning to 
my squadron, I went over to see them and found Drs. 

P , M , D , and V . I dined with them 

and spent the night and we discussed the affairs of 
the nations generally. To-morrow I expect to go back 
and fly the machine home as the mechanics now have 
it in shape. 

Dr. P told me that the Boche had bombed the 

hospital two out of the last three evenings. At first 
they thought it was a mistake, but when they kept it 
up it became apparent that there was no mistake. This 
is a big field hospital in white tents and lots of red 
crosses plainly visible. I have myself seen it from the 
air and you can see it more distinctly than anything 
else in the neighborhood. A couple of days before, a 
bomb had landed on a cook shack about twenty yards 

from Dr. P 's tent. The cook's leg came through the 

roof of the tent next door and the guy-ropes of Dr. 

P 's tent were decorated with his entrails. Nice 

party don't you think? Another bomb landed right 

alongside of the tent occupied by D and V . 

Luckily they had just answered a special call to operate 
that night and were not in their tent. A piece of bomb 
went through one of their pillows where one or the 
other, I have forgotten which, had just been sleeping. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 63 
Their clothes were blown all over the lot and D 



exhibited numerous holes in the seat of his pants. 
Luckily he had not been in them at the time. 

We stood around after supper at the time when 
brother Boche usually came along and waited for him 
to put in an appearance. We had not long to wait. 
Pretty soon we could hear his motors humming up in 
the sky and dozens of searchlights began to look for 
him. They picked up one of the raiders and the show 
beat any Fourth of July celebration you ever saw. The 
machine showed clear and white in the glare of the 
searchlights. It was a dark night but very clear, with 
millions of stars. On every side were the muzzle 
flashes of the anti-aircraft guns, the sky was filled with 
the flashes of the bursting shells, and the two seemingly 
joined by streams of tracer bullets from machine guns. 
These latter look much like Roman candles except 
that they go much faster and keep on going up for 
thousands of feet instead of stopping short like the ball 
from a candle. Add to this the roar of the guns and 
bursting shells and you can imagine what a quiet eve- 
ning in a field hospital back of the front is like. The 
one Boche that we could see was driven off, but pretty 
soon we could hear others coming and this time so 
high up that the searchlights could not find them. 
As we stood there listening the sound of the motors 
seemed to have almost passed over us, when suddenly 
siz-bang-bang, and five or six bombs landed plumb in 
the camp. We threw ourselves flat for a moment and 
then went to see what had happened. You could 
hear cries coming from the direction where the bombs 
had fallen and the air was filled with dust and smoke. 
One bomb which fell within about seventy-five yards 



C4 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

of us killed three men and wounded about six. Another 
lit right in a ward, — imagine the effect when it was full 
of wounded soldiers. The casualties in all amounted 
to about 34 killed and 125 wounded. The camp 
consists of four field hospitals joined together. Fifty 
per cent of the staff of one of the hospitals was knocked 
out. I enclose you two clippings describing similar 
atrocities. The one described in the clipping headed 
"The New Frightf ulness " happened not far from here 
and I know it is true. Don't let any one tell you that 
these things are mistakes. You can't bomb a hospital 
three times in four days and then put in an alibi about 
a mistake. The clipping entitled "Do we hate 
enough?" seems to me to just about hit the nail on 
the head except for the mention of a possibility of ever 
again being friends with the Boches. They are be- 
yond the pale of a decent man's friendship and should 
be considered as a race with which no Christian should 
have anything to do. I am frank to say that I am look- 
ing forward to the day when I shall, I hope, kill some 
of them, for I hate them as I would a snake and would 
kill them with as little compunction. They have not 
even the excuse of the ordinary murderer i. e. that he 
was not decently brought up and did not know any 
better. It goes without saying that in speaking of the 
Huns I am always speaking of the German people who, 
individually and as a nation, are responsible for this 
war and whom we are fighting, and not at all of loyal 
Allied or American citizens of German birth or descent. 
I forgot to add that one of the nurses lost an eye, and 
you have of course seen in the papers the case of the 
"Belgian Prince," where a submarine commander 
deliberately took the life belts away from 38 English 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 65 

seamen and then drowned them in cold blood. Shoot- 
ing is too good for people of this sort. I have no 
particular malice against the Boches because they killed 
Chadwick as that was in a fair fight, as fights go out 
here. Except for the rotten explosive bullets that 
they use so much, they seem to play the game fairly 
well in the air when it comes to a combat. What they 
do when it comes to hospitals I have already told you. 

St. Pol-sur-Mer. September 4th, 1917. 
Have been trying to write for the past three evenings 
but it has been necessary to put the lights out and spend 
the time in or close to a dug-out. There is a gorgeous 
moon now, just right for night bombardment work 
and the Huns have been making the most of it. Every 
night regularly they bomb a nearby town,* generally 
setting it on fire in several places. Since I began this 
letter I have been out in the dug-out and there is a 
big fire raging at this moment. The Boches have 
dropped about fifteen bombs so far to-night and it is 
quite a remarkable sight to watch them hit. The in- 
cendiary ones light up the whole sky and the high ex- 
plosives throw a huge fountain of sparks in all direc- 
tions. When they are bombing the town we stand 
outside and watch the show, but when they come our 
way we duck down our hole like a lot of rabbits. No 
one but a fool or a greenhorn will stand around and get 
blown up just for the sake of seeing the sights. When 
you add the searchlights, anti-aircraft guns, bursting 
shells, and machine guns, to the fires and terrific ex- 
plosions of the bombs, you have about all your eyes and 
ears can take in at one time. I shall never again I 

* Dunkirk. 



6G THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

think, so much as take the trouble to walk around the 
corner to watch a fire-works display on the 4th of July. 

St. Pol-sur-Mer, Sept. 8, 1917. 

I told you in my last letter to Mother, which I had 
to cut short, that I had my first fight last Sunday morn- 
ing. It did not amount to much, but it was a satis- 
faction to be able at last to let one's gun off at a Bochc. 
On the morning in question, I was to go on a high patrol 
but my motor would not start at first so I did not get 
off until fifteen minutes after the others and had to 
go out to the lines by myself. When I got there I was 
still quite low, between 2000 and 2500 metres and ran 
into a low patrol of three machines from our escadrille. 
I thought they might possibly be my own crowd and 
joined them for a moment to find out. Just as I did 
so I saw five machines coming our way which I took 
for another Allied patrol starting on its way home. The 
men with whom I was were all pretty green (like my- 
self) and evidently did not see the other machines at 
all. They worked around toward our rear and al- 
though I still thought they were friends I did not like 
the way they acted and kept watching them over my 
shoulder. When they got quite close, say 150 metres, 
I suddenly saw the leader let drive at one of our men 
who was below me to my left. You can plainly see 
the flash of a machine gun and the explosive bullets 
leave long streams of wavy smoke behind them in the 
air. In a big scrap where there is a lot of shooting 
the long hairs of smoke left by the bullets sometimes 
make the planes look as though they were in the middle 
of an enormous cobweb. 

The man who was shot at turned suddenly and dove 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 G7 

lo get out of the way; he got three bullets through the 
tail of his machine. As he turned, the five machines 
veered and I saw plainly that they were five Boche 
single-seater fighting planes. The particular type very 
much resembles one of ours and the cocardes are hard 
to see until one is quite close. Our other two machines 
kept K°J ,J K for our own lines, the pilots evidently being 
taken by surprise and a bit mixed up. One could not 
very well go off and leave the one man who had been 
shot at with five Bodies after him, so I turned around 
short and flew towards them. They had already 
veered when our man whom they shot at turned toward 
them. Three of them went down and two went up. 
The three that went down wanted to go after our 
machine that had gone down, but I think they were 
afraid to do so when they saw me above them. Our 
man made a safe get-away anyhow. I had a lovely 
chance to dive on the Boche below me, but every time 
I started I looked at the two above and they would 
begin to do the same thing to me. It is pure fool- 
hardiness to attack, when you do not have to, with 
other enemy machines close above your head. That 
was the way Oliver was killed, but he had to go in. 
The five Boches kept retreating into their own territory 
and it was impossible to get close enough to really 
do much with one's shooting. The three below kept 
circling about close together, evidently in the hope 
that I would attack and give the two above their chance. 
I got a few shots at one of them but he was three hun- 
dred yards off and you can't do anything more than 
worry a machine at such a range except by sheer good 
luck. I then tried to get near the two upper ones, but 
they kept hiking for home, and although I got a few 



68 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

more long shots, I had to turn back .-is l was by myself 
and getting boo far into the Boone territory, perhaps 
ilucr or four milt's or so. On my way back the Boohe 
"Archies" (anti-aircraft guns) tried to have some fun 
with me, but did not come close enough to amount to 
anything, The whole thing did not amount to more 
than a useful experience as most o( the shooting was 
too far off to have any effect. 

Was out on Wednesday morning on a high patrol 
and had a couple of other little settos from which 1 
think l also got some experience, but that was about. 

all. We were Up as high as 1 have been SO far. about 

is, odd feet, and it is as oold as Christmas up there. 
Dressed warmly however you do not feel it much, ex- 
cept o\\ your face, ami 1 have UOW got something io 

cover most oi thai up. There were five o( us this time 
and at about 16,000 feet we ran across three or four 
Boohe fighting planes who were a little below us. We 
manoeuvred for position and attacked. 1 picked out 

One fellow ami went for him, but after about six shots 
and just when I was getting close enough to do some 
business, my machine gun quit owing to a cartridge 

missing fire* I tried to tix it at once, but she would 

not ti\. Every one had gotteD pretty well separated 

during the fight and as (here was one Boohe above me 

in a fine position \o attack and I could see no sign of 

my comrades, I started hiking for our side oi the fence 

as fast as 1 could go. On the way I passed a Boohe 
within a hundred yards going in the opposite direction 

liked a seared rabbit. I had to laugh (o see him hump- 
ing his machine up and down so as to make it hard to 
hit. lie looked for all the world like a hopping rabbit 
and I guess he thought I was going to take a eraek at 



ESCADRILLE N. 7:', 60 

him, but if he 1 1 .* l< J only known It I was beating it, for 

home just as hard aa he was. 

As soon as I got in quieter water i fixed my machine 
gun and began looking for my patrol. I had oot been 
going five minutes when I ran bang on a Boche two- 
seater all by itself. I was afraid to start shooting when 
f first wanted to as there are bo many different allied 
machines that it is very hard for a greenhorn to tell 
them all from the German. I thought it was a Boche, 
but did not Like to begin shooting until I was absolutely 
surf;, so waited until he passed under my win^ close 
enough to see his old maltose crosses on his planes. I 
then turned around and went for him from above, which 
\>y the way, is a fool method to attack a two-seater, 
as it gives the machine gunner, who sits behind trie 
pilot, a beautiful shot at you. Usually the best way 

to do if- is to get under hi:: tail where ho often doe:: not 

see you and can't shoot without hitting bis own tail. 
I guess I was a bit too anxious however and spoiled my 
own chance. I could see the machine gunner blazing 
away and could not, get to close quarters without giving 
him a much better chance at mo than I had at him. 
I aimed ahead of him about the, distance that I thought 

was right and gave him a rip from my machine gun. 

I could Bee die tracer bullets and they looked to me as 
though I hit him, but I could not, be sure. At all 
events ho started for homo without a second's hes- 
itation, full motor and diving slightly, which gives al- 
most the greatest speed. I manoeuvred a little and 
gave if to him again and I hope I touched him up for 
the machine gunner seemed to me to stop shooting. J 
went, after him a third time, this time from behind his 

tail and we were both Btreaking it through the air at a 



70 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

scandalous pace. I had my machine nosed down a 
bit and going full out, was overhauling him and had 
just begun to shoot again when my machine gun 
jammed, this time from a broken cartridge and so 
that it was impossible to fix it in the air. We had been 
going for the Hun territory all the time, so that we 
were by this time several miles behind the German 
lines. With my machine gun out of commission there 
was of course nothing to do but go home. Since that 
time we have been having poor weather again and I 
have not been over the lines. 

I certainly hope I can become skilful enough before 
long to drop one of these fellows good and proper as 
the saying is. My chance at the two-seater was badly 
handled, as I had to do my shooting at about 200 yards, 
and this is entirely too far. The great majority of 
successful fights, practically all of them in fact, are 
fought from 100 to 10 yards. You must remember the 
terrific speeds of the machines, the fact that we have to 
point our whole machine, and the great distances cov- 
ered in a few seconds, in order to understand why patrol 
formations get broken up in a fight and why there is 
so much shooting without result. Also, when it is one 
machine against another, if one fellow sees the other 
coming a good way off and wants to get away, he can 
usually do it. It takes so little time to cover several 
miles, and a skilfully manoeuvred machine is very 
hard to hit anyhow. The majority of successful com- 
bats are cases of surprise, where you sneak up close 
behind another machine without his seeing you or 
where he is bus}- attacking still another machine, and 
you can drop on his rear unawares. There are ex- 
ceptions, of course, but most fights seem to be like 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 71 

this. Of course if a number of machines attack one of 
the enemy, they can often on account of their num- 
bers get him whether he sees them or not and no 
matter how hard he tries to get away. I think I 
could do a lot better with that two-seater another time, 
but a little experience like this is I guess the only way 
to learn. 

It would be utterly impossible for the one man in 
a chasse machine to use a movable gun fired from the 
shoulder. There is no place where you could carry 
such a gun and you would not have room to use it if 
you could carry it. In our small planes, of which the 
greatest assets are speed and manageability, there is 
just room for the pilot and no more. He is entirely 
encased with nothing but his head sticking out and in 
addition is tightly strapped in his seat with straps 
coming up between his legs and over his shoulders. 
This precaution is both necessary and important for in 
the rush of a close encounter one will do things that 
would otherwise throw the pilot around inside the 
machine and possibly out of it. 

There is not much news to tell you about this week 
as my work has been very quiet, due largely to the flying 
having been considerably interfered with by more bad 
weather. We have however had some clear nights and 
the Boches have been doing their best to make things 
lively by dropping a few bombs around. I have 
already told you what a night bombardment looks like 
and also of the wonderful sight presented by the de- 
fense against it. It is all very well to watch three or 
four times, but when they keep it up night after night 
so that you have to put the lights out and stay near a 
dugout just when you want to do some writing or go 



72 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

to bed, it becomes nothing but a nuisance and a 
bore. 

Most of the bombs dropped near here have been 
aimed at the town, but now and then the Boches seem 
to take a shot at us. At all events, one night in the 
early part of this week, they dropped one about ten or 
fifteen feet from the side of our barracks and they sure 
did muss it up good and proper. We had gotten our 
room all nicely fixed up, but that bomb wrecked the 

whole works. M and I had bought ourselves a set 

of tea things, cups, saucers and plates, etc., so that we 
could make ourselves tea in the afternoon and have 
oatmeal, eggs, etc., in the morning. Everything went 
in one grand smash, including the tar paper walls and 
ceiling to our room. You never saw a prettier mess 
or a more complete wreck than our room appeared to 
be when we came groping in in the dark after the 
Boches had gone. We were, however, lucky that our 
room was on the opposite side of the building from 
that on which the bomb fell. 

Some of the men opposite us were much worse off 
as the explosion pushed in their side of the building 
and tore parts of the roof off over their heads. The 
hole the bomb made in the ground was about four feet 
deep by about twelve across. Right close by stood 
our cook shack, but after the smoke had cleared away 
it was hard to recognize. I have taken some pictures 
and will send them along when they are developed and 
I think they will show you what happened much better 

than I can describe it. M and I had gone to a 

shelter some little distance away where we could be 
pretty safe and at the same time see what was going 
on. When this particular bomb landed I said I thought 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 73 

it looked very close to our barracks and that we would 
have the laugh on the Boches if we went back and 
found that they had blown our room up when we were 
not there. We went to look after everything was 
comparatively quiet and sure enough our room had 
been blown up, but I am not so sure that the joke was 
all on the BOehes. However, the bomb was not close 
enough to hurt any of our things except the plates, 
and after a couple of days' hard work we are now much 
better and more comfortably installed than we were 
before. 

They did seem to have it in for us that night though, 
as another bomb dropped in a village at least a mile 
away, right on the house of the good woman to whom 
we send our laundry, incidentally blowing the week's 
wash literally to shreds. Pieces of the bomb which 
dropped "chez nous" went right through the barracks 
from one side to the other, in places fairly riddling it. 
Luckily everyone was in the shelters and not a soul was 
so much as scratched. Come to think of it the total 
casualties were one dog. He was asleep in his kennel 
in a tent and a piece of bomb came through the side 
of the tent, through the side of the wooden kennel, 
through the poor hound, out through the other side 
of the kennel, and where it went after that is hard 
to say. 

I enclose you a snapshot of myself in flying togs 
standing in front of my machine and have cut it down 
until I do not think the censor can possibly object. 
Pretty good of me don't you think but so far as I have 
been able to discover I am certain that I am of no 
" military importance." 



74 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

St. Pol-sur-Mer, Sept. 16th, 1917. 

You will have seen in the papers long before you get 
this letter, that Capt. Guynemer, the greatest of them 
all, is gone. He and another officer went out on Tues- 
day morning to hunt the Hun. They were flying fairly 
high, somewhere around 1G,000 feet I think, and Guyne- 
mer went down a little way to attack a two-seater while 
the lieutenant who was with him stayed up to protect 
his rear. About that time eight Boche single-seater 
machines put in an appearance and the lieutenant was 
kept busy trying to worry them and keep them from 
going down on the captain. He succeeded and none 
of the Bodies dove down, but in the general mix-up he 
lost track of Guynemer and he has not been heard from 
since. He must have fallen in the Boche lines and I 
am afraid he was killed without much question. The 
place where the fight occurred was over the Boche 
territory, but close enough to our lines to have allowed 
Guynemer to have reached them if he had been merely 
wounded. Also, if the Huns had taken him prisoner, 
we would certainly have heard of it before now. They 
would be proud to get him and I am surprised that 
they have as yet made no announcement of his having 
been found. 

The loss of this man is very great, as he was by all 
odds the greatest aviator and individual fighter the 
war has produced. I am awfully sorry, for if ever a 
man had won his spurs and deserved to live it was Capt. 
Guynemer. He had 53 Hun machines to his credit 
officially and I hoped that he had become so skilful 
that he would never be killed. As I have already 
written you, he was small and of a frail appearance. 
I believe his health was very far from good and the 




Captain Guynemer about to start on the last flight from which 
he ever returned. 

He came back with his machine badly shc-1 up. On his next flight, he 
was killed and fell near Poelkapelle, Belgium, September 11, i'.»i7. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 75 

high altitudes sometimes made him so sick he had to 
come down. He would fly for a week and then go 
away for a rest, as he was not strong enough to stand 
any more. In the course of several hundred fights he 
had been shot down seven times and twice wounded. 
To keep at it under such circumstances and after all 
he had gone through, a man's heart has to be in the 
right place and no mistake. He certainly deserved to 
live the rest of his days in peace and one hates to see 
a man like that get it. The evening before he disap- 
peared, I was standing on the field when he landed with 
a dead motor caused by a bullet in it. There were 
three others through his wings. He had attacked an- 
other two-seater, something went wrong with his motor 
at the crucial moment and this gave the Boche a good 
shot at him and spoiled his own chance of bringing 
down his opponent. A little episode like this, how- 
ever, rolled off his back like water off a duck, perhaps a 
little too easily I fear. Long immunity breeds a con- 
tempt of danger which is probably the greatest danger 
of all. Guynemer's loss naturally throws more or less 
of a gloom over everyone. 

It is clear again this evening so I am going to close 
this letter before I have to start for a dug-out. We 
were out in quest of the elusive Boche this afternoon and 
got up as high as I have yet been, between nineteen 
and twenty thousand feet, but had no luck. Saw a 
couple of them but they were above us and by the time 
we had gotten up to where they were they had run for 
home while we were still too far away to catch them. 
Reminds me of the old days when I used to chase what 
you were wont to call the " invisible duck." 



76 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

St. Pol-sur-Mer, Sept. 22, 1917. 
Father in his last letter said he thought having a 
Hun sneak up under your tail would be a great danger 
and he is quite right. Surprise is the thing to try 
to spring on the Bodies and is the most important thing 
to avoid having them spring on you. I think my long 
training in looking for the festive duck has helped me 
considerably, as spotting a machine a long way off 
in the air comes to much the same thing. I have not 
been caught napping yet or even come close to it and 
hope I shall not be. The closest I have been was one 
day this week when we were flying just beneath some 
clouds. Five Huns used the clouds to sneak up in 
our rear and above us, and I know I did not see them 
until they were within about three hundred yards. 
There were four of us on the patrol and one of our men 
lagged a little too far behind. He did not see the 
Bodies until just as a couple of them opened fire on 
him. He then did some quick manoeuvring to escape 
while the rest of us tried to get above them to help 
him out. They had us at a great disadvantage being 
several hundred feet above. In the meantime our 
companion was in a difficult position with several 
Huns around him shooting at him and I was afraid 
they were going to get him, but he did some pretty good 
manoeuvring, making himself very hard to hit and they 
never even touched his machine. There was a heavy 
gale blowing that morning toward the German lines 
and I never realized before how far one could travel 
in a short time under such conditions. The rest of 
us had turned and chased those Huns into their own 
linos for only about a minute I think, before we turned 
back. There was a solid bank of clouds above us at 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 77 

about 12,000 feet and a lot more about 5000 feet lower 
down. I lost my companions in a cloud and not being 
able to see the ground had to fly back to our lines by 
compass. 

It is a funny feeling flying along in clear air with 
clouds both above and below you and we do not often 
do it except in such a case as this, for one quickly loses 
one's bearings and there is generally no purpose to 
be accomplished. This time, however, I did not want 
to come down below the lower clouds for I knew I was 
well over the Boche territory. Once or twice when I 
passed over a hole so that I could see and be seen from 
the ground, the Huns would let go an anti-aircraft shell 
or two but they could not see me well enough to put 
them close enough to worry about. I flew by the 
compass for about ten minutes and when I dropped 
down within sight of the ground was only just over our 
own lines. One has to be careful of a heavy wind like 
this and we have had a great deal of it, always toward 
the Hun lines. It is a great handicap, for in a combat 
one cannot manoeuvre without being quickly carried 
into the enemy territory where one is likely to be soon 
much outnumbered. The day after the above episode, 
I was trying to bag a Boche and got mixed up with a 
couple of them. Four of us were out on patrol and 
attacked a formation of six Albatross scouts. There 
was again a very heavy wind blowing into the German 
lines and in chasing a Boche I was carried well into his 
territory before I realized it. Just as I was getting 
close enough to shoot at him another Hun came up 
and then suddenly I saw five more coming behind him. 
We were all on the same level and I did not like the 
look of things at all, so turned back for our own lines. 



78 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

The two nearest Bodies got on my tail, one at about 
sixty yards range and the other at perhaps a hundred, 
and when each opened up with his two machine guns 
I never saw so many explosive bullets in my life, they 
seemed to me to be going by in regular flocks. 

The thing to have done under ordinary circumstances 
would have been to have turned and fought it out with 
the two Huns who were shooting at me or at least to 
have manoeuvred with them until a better opportunity 
of getting away presented itself. In this case however, 
to have turned would have landed me in the middle 
of all seven of them and with the wind carrying us 
into Hunland I would have been out of luck. The 
only thing to do therefore was to keep flying for home 
at the same time throwing my machine around so as 
to present as difficult a target as possible. I did 
things I never knew I could do before and think I in- 
vented some new forms of acrobacy, for those Huns 
scared me out of about live years' growth. Luckily for 
me one of the Frenchmen saw that I was in trouble 
and being above us all he was able to fly in over the 
Huns and scared them oi'L When we got back to our 
field after the flight I examined my machine expecting 
to find about a dozen holes in it. Was rather dis- 
appointed not to find any so I guess those Bodies 
must have been very poor shots or more probably I 
am just very green and thought that I was in more 
trouble than I really was. 

1 have explained to you that it is quite a job to get 
any of these Huns here, but with a little luck and per- 
severance perhaps we may have one of them fly into 
some of the bullets that we strew about. Here's hop- 
ing so anyhow ! 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 79 

There is another moon now and we have been ex- 
pecting more bombs, but thanks to cloudy nights we 
have been left in peace. By day we swear at clouds 
and by night we bless them. Sometimes they are 
handy in daytime also as for instance the other day 
when I was in the Hun territory by myself. I felt quite 
safe, for with clouds above and below, if I had run into 
too many enemy machines, a cloud affords a con- 
venient refuge where you can easily lose them. 

Bergues. Oct. 3, 1917. 
The sector of the front where we do practically all 
our flying runs from Dixmudc to Ypres. The Belgians 
are on our left and the English on our right here. As 
you are seeing by the papers, the British have been 
giving the Huns what for around Ypres and I hope 
we can keep it up and make substantial progress be- 
fore the bad weather sets in. It has been much im- 
proved lately. When we fly really high Ostend is 
plainly visible and I often think of the days that you 
and Mother and I spent there, swimming, going to 
the races, etc. Times sure have changed ! Not long 
ago several of us were protecting an artillery regulating 
machine when our big guns were trying to blow up the 
huge Hun gun that bombards Dunkirk. This work 
was nearer the sea than usual, and at 1G,000 feet 
Ostend looked almost as though you could drop a 
stone on it. It is interesting when this big Boche gun 
bombards at night. When she goes off our men signal 
it in from near the lines, they blow a whistle in Dunkirk 
and all the people take cover. Between one and two 
minutes later I should think, the shell arrives and there 
is an explosion which, with one exception, beats any 



80 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

other I have ever heard. After that you can hear the 
crash of falling bricks and broken houses. 

The one exception I mentioned, was when our camp 
was bombed again about ten days ago. For the 
second time in ten days our cook shack was wiped 
out and my room wrecked along with the others. It 
took a lot of time to fix things up again, not to mention 
being a great nuisance. This time, I was in a trench 
with the other pilots just in front of the barracks. The 
trench had been prepared for such occasions and it cer- 
tainly came in handy. Three bombs fell close to us, 
of which one was about thirty yards away and the 
other fifteen feet from the corner of the trench, where 

M and I were. It bulged in the side of the trench, 

blew our hats off and threw dirt all over us. The hole 
in the ground was about four feet deep by about ten 
or twelve across and needless to say this was the fellow 
that broke all my records for noise. I was not quite 
sure for a few seconds whether I was all there or not. 
As we were below the ground, however, it never trou- 
bled us though I thought it had about caved in one 
of my ear drums for a while, but that is all right now. 

A night bombardment is a fine sight to watch from 
a safe distance but when you are yourself the target 
it is the most unpleasant thing I have yet struck, 
especially when the novelty has worn off and you know 
what to expect. You always know when the Huns 
are coming by the anti-aircraft guns and the peculiar 
sound of their motors humming up among the stars. 
When these motors tell you they are almost overhead 
it is time to lay low in a trench. The bombs are 
usually dropped quite close together in groups of from 
four to eight perhaps. They of course fall in the line 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 81 

along which the course of the machine carries them. 
Suppose the first one falls say three or four hundred 
yards from you and the next a hundred yards closer. 
It is not hard to judge whether you are approximately 
on that line or not. As a matter of fact the interval 
between bombs is generally fifty yards or less. When 
they come within a couple of hundred yards you can 
hear them whistle for several seconds before they 
strike, and they all sound uncomfortably close. You 
just squat there in a trench, knowing that they have 
got your line, listening to the oncoming hiss and won- 
dering whether the next one is going to only fall in 
the trench with you or square in the middle of your 
back. If it comes good and close there is a blinding 
flash, a deafening explosion, dirt flies all over you and 
the ground rocks under your feet. The nasty part 
about it is sitting there in the dark wondering whether 
the next one is going to blow you into kingdom come, 
and being perfectly helpless to prevent it. It gives 
you an idea of what the men in the trenches have to 
face constantly. I would rather take my chances 
in the air with a Hun any day, for there you can see 
your danger and what happens depends mostly on 
your own skill. The danger in the latter case is much 
greater comparatively speaking, but is not half so un- 
pleasant. When you are down in a narrow trench the 
chances of a bomb falling in it or close enough to it to 
get you are very slight. Some of the shelters are 
covered and protect you against falling shrapnel and 
fragments of your own shells, but I rather prefer the 
open trench. If a big bomb fell on the roof of the 
ordinary shelter it would I think bury those it did not 
kill. 



82 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

The next day we moved our camp, as things were 
getting too hot for comfort. Now we can lie in bed 
in the evening and watch them bomb Dunkirk and be 
glad we are not there, for the Huns do not know where 
our camp is and I don't think they will be able to spot 
it. 

Bergues, Oct. 15, 1917. 

You speak about the value of constant care and in 
this you certainly hit the nail on the head. I think 
the motto of every flyer should be to never take an 
unnecessary chance or one that will not produce some 
real gain it' successful. Of the many accidents I feel 
sure that at least ninety-five per cent are caused by the 
carelessness, ignorance, or rashness of the pilot or by 
his failing to use his head. I have personally seen a 
painful number of accidents but I have yet to see one 
that was not directly due to one of these causes. 
As in anything else, as you become familiar with avia- 
tion and your machine, there is a natural tendency to 
relax and let your attention wander. To be able to 
relax is important or a pilot would never be much good 
and would soon wear out, but pipe-dreaming and care- 
lessness when near the ground or over the lines is 
bound to be fatal sooner or later. If you are where 
there are no Huns and have a couple of thousand feet 
under you, you can go to sleep if you like, for when the 
machine begins to fall you will wake up soon enough 
and in the modern fighting plane, Bopping over side- 
ways or any way in fact, is the least of the pilot's 
troubles. He does it every day on purpose to accus- 
tom himself to his machine and learn what it will do 
under all conditions. The cause of most accidents is 
carelessness in landing, and of most defeats in combat, 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 83 

the failure to watch the rear. This last is easier said 
than done for when a man is trying to kill a Hun in 
front of him, if he pays too much attention to his own 
rear, his attention will be so distracted that he will 
never succeed in getting the man he is after. 

One of our cracks got square the other day with the 
man who is reported to have killed Guynemer. This 
German was a captain and an observer in a two-seater. 
The Boche machine had flown far behind our lines to 
take pictures, but was very high, over twenty thousand 
feet, relying largely on his height for protection, for an 
ordinary fighting plane will not go that high. Our 
man,* who is very expert and has been a pilot for a 
long time, was in a particularly powerful machine and 
was the only one who saw the Boche who could get up 
to him. He climbed up under and behind his tail. 
Every time the Boche pilot would try to turn in order 
to give his gunner a shot, the Frenchman would slide 
around also, always keeping the Hun's own tail be- 
tween himself and the machine gunner, so that the 
latter could not shoot without shooting away his own 
controls. In this manner he got right on top of the 
Boche, and at the first salvo put his machine gun out 
of business and probably hit the gunner, i. e. the cap- 
tain who is credited by the Huns with having shot 
Guynemer. After that there was nothing to it, the 
second dose the Frenchman gave him cut away the 
supports of the wings on one side so that they came out 
of position. The Hun flopped over on his back and 
Guynemer's supposed slayer fell out of the machine, 
taking a nice little tumble of twenty thousand feet. 

* Captain (then Adjutant) Rene" Fonck, the ace of all the aces. At 
this time he had about fifteen German machines to his credit. At the 
end of the war he had increased his official record to seventy-five. 



84 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

The machine and pilot tumbled end over end and as 
they went by, a number of other French machines wait- 
ing below who had not been able io get up, like a pack 
o( wolves waiting for the leader to bring down the 
game, amused themselves taking pot shots at them. 
There Is no secret about a small fighting piano often 
not being able to get up quite as high as a two-seater, 
which although slower has a larger wing surface and 
can consequently mount better where the air is thin 
ami gives poor support. 

Bebgues, Oct. 16, 1917. 
To-day I was not listed to go out on patrol until the 
afternoon and as it was a nice morning, persuaded a 
Frenchman to go out with me on a "voluntary patrol" 
ami see if we could not find some Huns. Am very 
glad we did for it is raining this afternoon so that we 
could not work, and also we sure did find the Huns 
this morning. 1 am ashamed of myself for not having 
brought one down but this is how it came about. We 
were flying along at about 16,000 feet and in front of 
us a rather heavy mist, something like that which one 
sees hanging low over the fields on an autumn evening. 
I was the leader and suddenly saw a two-seater machine 
come out of the mist toward me and perhaps two 
hundred yards below. At first 1 thought it was an 
Englishman until as he started to pass under me I 
saw his black malt esc crosses and the peculiar shape 
of his wings. T thought this was a great chance and 
it was if I had not made a moss of it. I did a short 
turn and dove down full speed to get under his tail, 
and the manoeuvre worked out very nicely for it landed 
me behind and under his tail where he could neither see 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 85 

nor shoot at me, the machine gunner being blinded by 
his own tail planes. I thought at the time that he could 
not have helped but see me when I dove down behind 
him and just as I was trying to lay my sights on him, 
the machine turned a little as though the pilot were 
trying to get into a position where his gunner could 
shoot. I was only about seventy-five yards away and 
I thought to myself that if there was to be some shoot- 
ing I should be the one to start it. I accordingly blazed 
away without taking careful enough aim and although 
I hit him, for I could see the luminous bullets plainly, 
I did not get him in a vital spot. We were just about 
over the lines when I shot and the Hun started for home 
for all he was worth with little Willie after him and 
shooting when he could, but a wildly zigzagging ma- 
chine is an awfully hard thing to hit. Not perhaps so 
hard to shoot holes through the wings, but the vital 
spots are very small. I chased that son of a gun about 
four miles into his own country until I saw four single- 
seater fighting planes coming up to his assistance and 
I had to give it up. My companion had stayed up to 
protect my rear from four other Huns who appeared 
about the same time that I had attacked the fifth, and 
as in chasing the two-seater I had come down some 
three thousand feet, I lost track of him. In thinking 
this fight over I believe that Boche never knew I was 
there until I started to shoot. He certainly did act 
surprised then. If he did not know that I was there, 
I should have gotten much closer and aimed carefully 
before shooting at all. The tactics of practically all 
successful aerial fighters are to get quickly to very close 
quarters, fifty yards and often less, where they can 
fairly riddle the other fellow. Also, in attacking a two- 



86 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

seater, the closer one gets the safer it is, for it is easy 
to see that he will have to make a much greater move- 
ment in order to get an enemy out from under his tail 
if that enemy is only ten yards away, than if he is a 
hundred yards away. As you may imagine, the diffi- 
culties of aerial shooting are very great and if you 
can get right up against a Hun where you can give it 
to him point-blank with practically no correction to 
make for his speed, your task is much simplified. 

Be that as it may, about ten minutes after I got back 
to my own lines and started to search for my com- 
panion, I looked up and there right over my head about 
six hundred yards was another Boche two-seater. I 
don't think he had seen me at that time and I started 
climbing up under him as fast as I could. Unfortu- 
nately I had a new motor which had just been installed 
and some of the wires, as I learned on coming down, 
were loose. My engine consequently did not give me 
anything like the power it should have and I was very 
slow in climbing at the high altitude, about thirteen 
or fourteen thousand feet. I gained height on the 
Hun but very slowly and pretty soon he took a turn 
and saw me, whereupon he also started for home. He 
had flown inside our lines while I was following him 
and I was under his tail perhaps five minutes in all, 
trying to get up to him, but after following him several 
miles into his own country the closest I could get to 
him was about 400 yards. It would have been very 
foolish to go as far into the enemy territory as would 
have been necessary in order to catch him. I took 
deliberate aim and gave him a good salvo, but he was 
much too far off to hit, save by the greatest good luck 
and I never touched him. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 87 

I had scarcely gotten back over the lines again when I 
spotted still another Boche two-seater several hundred 
yards below me and coming in my direction. I did 
a quick, turn and dove to get behind his tail and as 
I did so saw that there were two and that from the 
way they manoeuvred they both saw me. I think 
the most difficult attack of all to make is upon a two- 
seater that sees you, for with a fixed gun ahead for the 
pilot and the machine gunner in the rear with a movable 
gun they possess an enormous field of fire, and can shoot 
you almost anywhere except under their tails. The 
fire from the pilot's gun of a two-seater is, however, 
comparatively easy to avoid so that one can attack 
head on from in front, but this gives the attacker only 
the most difficult kind of a shot and requires great skill 
and experience. The way most attacks are made, 
is to get under the tail with all the speed possible so 
as to give the machine gunner the hardest shot and 
little time to make it. I therefore dove for all I was 
worth and with your motor and gravity both taking 
you down you can get going so fast it is hard to breathe. 

After the second encounter, as there was a good deal 
of mist, I had closed a little trap that I have over my 
sights so as to keep the glass from becoming foggy. 
My manoeuvre with these Huns came out all right and 
brought me within 40 yards of one of them behind and 
below. Every time he would start to turn I slid around 
with him and he did not fire a single shot. I certainly 
thought I had this fellow, but when I went to squint 
through the sights the trap was closed, and I could 
not see. I tried to open it and just as I was doing so 
the Boche pilot gave his machine a twist so that his 
tail no longer protected me and I saw the machine 



SS THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

gunner drawing a bead on me. "This is no place for 
me," says I and I ducked under his tail again, at the 
same time standing my machine vertically on her 
nose so as to get away while still protected by the tail. 
The machine gunner fired not more than half a dozen 
shots 1 think but he luckily did not have time to do 
much aiming and never touched me. I started to go 
back at him again but we were getting very far into 
his own country and I had to give it up. 

Was not that trick of closing the sights the worst dub 
trick you ever heard of? It carries me back to my 
early days of duck shooting on the river. How well I 
remember my feelings when I would work hard for a 
shot and then just when I thought I had him, have 
missed because in my haste I had forgotten to cock my 
gun or put off the safety. I had just the same feeling 
to-day only worse for I had set my heart on that 
Boche. I as a matter of fact have another set of open 
sights which I might have used, or I could have shot 
by simply watching my tracer bullets. Or again I 
could have stuck it out long enough to open up my 
regular sights and use them but I was so surprised that 
I guess I got a bit rattled and just did not think quickly 
enough. When I woke up it was too late. You may 
wonder what the other Boche was doing in the mean- 
time. He was in the front of the one I was attacking 
and was where I could sec him, so it was practically 
the same as only having one to deal with. You may 
also wonder why I should have missed the first fellow 
I shot at. As I have said before, the whole business 
reminds me of the beginnings of duck shooting — there is 
just that same tendency to become over-anxious which 
one must conquer, ami then too it makes a great dif- 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 89 

ference when you have to keep ducking around under 
a Boche's tail to keep him from plugging you. Quick- 
ness is essential, but there is a certain quick delibera- 
tion which I think must be acquired by practice. Just 
the difference again between the quick unaimed snap 
shot of the beginner in wing shooting and the equally 
quick aimed shot of the old hand. And when the bird 
shoots back it does make an awful difference for when 
you see a machine gun aimed at you with fire spurting 
out of it, there is, to me at least, a strong tendency to 
duck my head like a blooming ostrich rooting in the 
sand. To-day was my first experience in attacking a 
two-seater from below and I think next time I shall be 
able to do much better. The only thing I accomplished 
to-day was driving those four Huns home off the lines 
and if they all go home another time I shall deserve a 
good kick. 

Don't get the idea that we have fights every time we 
fly. Until to-day I had not had so much as a shot at a 
Hun for three weeks although I had in that time done 
considerable flying. It seems to come in bunches for 
all three encounters to-day were within twenty-five 
minutes. 

The clipping which I enclose about German ''Junk- 
ers" is, I happen to know, substantially true. Have 
not seen any of this new type of machine as yet. 
They are I believe only for low work and are so heavily 
armored that they cannot fly very high. 

I think this is about all the news I have to tell you 
this time and here's hoping I shall soon be able to write 
of an encounter with a Hun that has a more successful 
ending. 

It is very interesting to watch the changes that 



80 Till': way OF THE EAGLE 

ttln place in | sector as thQ infantry under you attacks 

and advances* 3Tou can trace bhe advanoe by the slow 
changing of green fields and woods into a blasted 
wilderness which shows a mud brown color from the 
air. Fields become a mass o( shell holes filled with 
water and a wood turns from an expanse of green foU- 
to a few shattered and leafless trunks. For weeks 
l have watched in particular the destruction of a cer- 
tain forest.* When l arrived at the front it was al- 
most intact, here and there in the few open spaces one 
could see an occasional shell hole. Now one whole 
half of it which faces our lines is simply wiped out of 
existence and but for a few battered stumps, has 
melted until it looks almost like the surrounding 
quagmire of mud and shell holes. The other half 
has the appearance of a mangy dog. Every now and 

then yon notice that there is less green ano! more mud. 
This little forest is I suppose about four kilometres 

square and the change is necessarily gradual. One is 

naturally busy watching the air about him, but every 
week or so yon will notice that the destruction of some 
land-mark sneh as this forest has advanced another 
step. It is the same way with the little Belgian towns. 
l\v degrees they are obliterated until their sites are 
only distinguishable by a smudge a tritle darker in color 
than the brown of the torn fields which once surrounded 
them. 

feftQI B3,Oot tTth. 
Went out again this morning with the same French- 
man, looking for Huns. Cot two more cracks at them. 
The first was too far to accomplish anything although 
I could see some of my bullets going between his wings 

* IVr. 



I. ( ADRILLE ::. 78 W 

and h< 

"Hell bent for Election." 'J b 

a;-; t.h< : ■, .'. J '/, j)d : 

l he • 

him coming toward dm and let him paae about thirty 

■;, then jerked my d 
quiekl) eU tmder hii taH^ hut when I 

rely in Mi/ 

mi nut/;. H': '//.'j v\\<)-tl<:<\ XU<; V.'h <;/•'; \i<: 7.' a-, hv//- 

,<-j><;'\ up and firf/J a Ionj§ 

. ahead of me 
h foi I 
couple of fed 

ition hut it leemed to me thai I eould fed die 

wind from the bullet.-, a - - t.h':y r I'n»:y <•;<;.-' 

me a thrill and J loft no time in getting under hii 
t.i.il again I bad b lickly 

at die high altitude 'lo// ad my prorifrifn 

about three hundred feet under him b< ' 
eould atop it. Tbia made tht 

rk and although J hit him 
aee the hul of hii 

machine, they did no 
him up and tent him bona 

/ hat. a difficult, thing 
in thi rork, I b rer realized it before 

Once more M. to ,/ "wait until 

UW7. 

Arrived in P fly a new 

Lack to die front.. Had expected to get ofl 

am afraid it. will be I .it. till 

the an for me I think, 



92 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

but you will be glad to know that it will probably only 
be a couple of weeks before I have the latest type, one 
which will out-fly and out-climb anything the Huns 
have. My present one is very good but the new ones 
are better and also mount two guns instead of one. 

Had two more arguments with the Boches on the 
18th. One in the morning was a long range hit and 
run scrap with a bunch of single-seater fighting ma- 
chines where the object was more to drive them off than 
anything else. In the afternoon I found a two-seater 
by itself and think the pilot was a greenhorn for when I 
dove under his tail he got scared and started to beat it 
for home in a perfectly straight line. My position was 
perfect and the machine gunner could not even see 
me, let alone shoot. I could have run into him if I 
had wanted to and thought I had him sure. Two shots 
and the machine gun broke. I was so mad and dis- 
appointed I could have cried but here's hoping such bad 
luck is over and things will break my way next time. 
I have gotten a lot of valuable experience this week 
if nothing else. 

Bergues. Oct. 30th, 1917. 
You referred in your last letter to my speaking of 
going out alone with one other man over the lines. 
My reason for doing this is not at all because we have 
not enough men to fly in groups, but simply because two 
is the best number if you want to try to bring down some 
Huns. Two men patrols are nearly always voluntary 
"vols de chasse" and on such an expedition you can 
get a shot at many Huns who would take to the woods 
in the face of larger numbers. As you say, however, 
there is in aviation too much striving for individual 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 93 

success and not enough team work. This sort of thing 
produces some fine men, but kills unnecessarily a great 
many more. Although the Hun flyers are not up to the 
English or French, man for man, I have seen them 
bag our men on several occasions simply by always 
using their heads and working on a system and get off 
scot-free, although the man they got was probably 
better than any single one of them. 

As for the statistics you say you saw in Baltimore, 
about all our best flyers having been killed, and many 
of the Germans being still alive, I think that they are 
mistaken. Practically all the big German aces are 
gone. Our men and the English have bagged several 
here in this sector this fall. On the other hand, there 
are a number of Frenchmen who have many Boche 
machines to their credit. 

We have one fellow named Fonck in this group who 
only started in on chasse work last Spring, although 
he had been a pilot for a long time. Already he has 
about twenty Huns. He is a wonder, and with a little 
luck, should I think equal Guynemer's record. He is 
the fellow I wrote you about, who got the Boche who 
was reported to have killed Guynemer. He flies a 
great deal, and the regularity with which he nails them 
is extraordinary. A couple of days ago, he went out 
in the morning and brought one Hun down in flames, 
and killed a machine gunner in another, only failing 
to get it because his engine went back on him. In the 
afternoon Fonck went out again, brought another two- 
seater down in flames, and probably got a single-seater 
as well. When a man gets a few Huns and becomes 
recognized as very good he of course gets greater 
opportunities, and has the advantage of being among 



\)\ THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

the lirst to get the newest and finest type of machine 
before the other pilots. But no matter what advan- 
tage of this sort he has, Fonek lias won it and his re- 
cord is none the loss remarkable. 

1 hope when we are transferred to the U, S. forces 
the fact that wo have our Government back of us will 
enable us to bo anions:: the Brs1 to got the best machines. 
As an improvement is made, it o( course takes time to 
supply every one, hut the men who got the now typo 
first got the jump on the others, so to speak, and have 
the groat advantage of going after the Huns with a 
machine that will perform hot tor than the Boche be- 
lieve it will. For instance, if your machine will fly 
Faster or climb higher ami more quickly than the 
ordinary type will and the Hun that you are after 

bases his calculation on the performance of the ordinary 
type, you can easily see that you have a much better 
chance of fooling him. This keeping ahead of the 
times is, I think, of the utmost importance, and I 
hope the X T . S. Government realises this. Turning out 
machines in largo quantities and standardization 
have of course their advantages, but it would bo a 
groat mistake to load up with a lot o( machines of a. 
certain typo and thou by the time wo could got thorn 
on the front in the spring find that they were out of 
dato. The science of aeroplane building is still ad- 
vancing very fast. 

One oi my reasons for hoping that after I have had 
my fling at the front I may bo able to win a higher 
position is. because I should much like to have an 
opportunity of trying to cut out some of the frightful 
inefficiency and waste of time and effort that one sees 
on every side. It is sometimes perfectly appalling, 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 95 

and I can now understand what I could not understand 
before I came over, and that is, why the Germans 
have been able to do so well. What we know of their 
methods is of course only hearsay, but from all ac- 
counts, "efficiency and united effort" are their middle 
names as the slang expression has it. The results 
they have accomplished certainly bear out this rep- 
utation. 

What do you all think at home of the recent Hun 
invasion of Italy? The outlook is pretty gloomy, is it 
not, but I hope it may serve to make people in America 
realize that this war is not won yet by a long sight, 
and that if if is going to be won they have got to get 
into it for all they are worth. We certainly should 
do our utmost without complaining when one con- 
siders what a soft time of it we have had so far. Yes- 
terday a Frenchman came to me with a letter he had 
received from a friend of his, an English infantry 
officer. It was written in English and he asked me 
to translate it for him. The Englishman was speak- 
ing of one of the recent attacks and said among other 
things, that he was sorry to have to write that Major 

X and his son Captain X had both been 

killed within an hour of each other. I thought at the 
time that this bit of news was going to be pretty hard 

on Mrs. X when it reached England, but this is 

what Kngland has been going through for over three 
years now. J'ractically all her best young blood is gone. 
When the same sort of news reaches America a hundred 
thousand times or so, I guess we will wake up and 
realize that we have a war on our hands, if we do not 
realize it already. 

The Italian business is certainly too bad and seems to 



96 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

be the direct result of the Russian fizzle. If the Rus- 
sians had only done half their duty it seems likely that 
the war might have been ended this year, but now it 
doesn't seem possible that the end can come before 
another year at least. 

Bergues, November 12th. 

I am in a particularly bad humor this morning, 
so do not be surprised if it is to a certain extent reflected 
in this letter. To-day is the most beautiful one that 
could be desired — better than any we have had for two 
weeks, and just what I have been waiting for. Three- 
quarters of an hour ago I was all dressed sitting in 
my machine, about to start out, when a mechanic 
discovered a leak in a gasoline tank, which means that 
it must be changed and that the machine will not be 
ready until the morning, so there goes another day to 
pot. 

A few days ago I started out on a patrol with two 
lieutenants and on our way to the lines we saw a num- 
ber of miles to one side of us a great many of our own 
anti-aircraft shells bursting. We went over to investi- 
gate and what did we run into but ten Hun Gothas and 
a couple of chasse machines flying over them for pro- 
tection. The lieutenant who was leading our patrol 
says he shot at a couple of them, but I could not see 
him do it, as I was a little behind. The cover of my 
radiator had cracked and the water, mixed with glycer- 
ine to keep it from freezing, had sprayed out, covering 
my telescope sights, the windshield and my glasses, 
so that I could not see well. I had gotten a little be- 
hind the others in trying to clean things up with my 
handkerchief. At all events, the lieutenant's machine 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 97 

gun went back on him, and he started back with the 
other lieutenant after him; seeing them both go, I 
thought they must be after a Hun that I had not seen, 
so I started to follow them, but when I could see no 
signs of a Boche in that direction, I turned back. 

A Gotha machine, you know, is the enormous Hun 
machine that they use for their night bombing in the 
raids on England. They are almost as big as the Ca- 
proni which they have been recently demonstrating 
in the U. S. They have two motors and as a rule 
carry three or four men. They are unusually well 
armed with movable machine guns, fore and aft, and 
the usual zone of safety under the tail is removed by 
means of a tunnel in the fuselage, which enables them 
to shoot under their tails. It therefore behooves you 
to "mind your eye" when you attack and to make sure 
you either get him or put his rear gunners out of 
business at least, for although you may be able to 
approach without giving him much of a shot it is im- 
possible not to give him a shot in getting away. 

These Gothas were the first that I had ever had a 
real look at for they are rarely seen by day; once or 
twice I have seen them in the distance over the lines. 
At all events, when I turned back, I spotted one Gotha 
off a little to one side of the squadron and somewhat 
over my head. As they were only about 9000 feet up 
climbing was easy and I started after him. They saw 
what I was up to however and the Hun drew in along- 
side of his companion for protection. Under these 
circumstances, it is foolishness to attack by yourself, 
for you will have at least two or three machine gunners 
shooting at you with their movable guns and no way 
of protecting yourself when you want to shoot, for 



98 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

then you have to hold your machine steady. You will 
just get riddled with practically no chance of success 
to compensate for it. I accordingly looked for better 
game and saw another Gotha behind the squadron all 
by himself and below me. I flew around over him for 
a minute to see if the coast was clear and then dove 
down behind his tail. When I started after him he left 
the others and put for home as fast as he could go. 
All these Huns were well within our lines, and this was 
just what I wanted. 

About this time I looked around to see if any other 
Huns were coming on my tail and there were two chasse 
machines just behind me in the sun. This gave me a 
jolt for with my glasses all fogged up it took me several 
seconds to make sure that they were English and not 
Huns. All the time the "Archie" shells were bursting 
in every direction, for in this sector at least, they often 
do not stop shooting just because one of their own 
machines goes after a Hun. As they generally shoot 
behind they come closer to you than to the Huns, 
and it always makes me sore. They did the same trick 
the day before when I was trying to sneak up under a 
Hun's tail. That time our guns were shooting at 
him and their guns shooting at me, so that between 
the two there was quite a bit of a bombardment. It 
seems to me that this is bad policy for it is compara- 
tively rare that they hit a machine with the "Archies" 
and why bother a man who really has a good chance of, 
accomplishing something. 

To come back to the Gotha, I got within 150 yards 
of him just behind his tail, so that he never fired a 
shot, but when I tried to aim everything was so gummed 
up I could not see the sights and the Gotha was nothing 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 99 

but a blur. Now as I have explained, these machines 
are regular battle ships of the air, and to get them you 
have got to fairly riddle them for they frequently carry 
two pilots in case one is killed. I had to give this one 
up without firing a shot and I have been wondering ever 
since whether I did what I should have. My mistake 
was, in not going in quicker, and if I had then had time 
to get right up close to him before he got into his own 
lines, I could probably have seen well enough to shoot 
anyhow. On the only other time that I have seen 
Gothas by day they have been escorted by a whole 
flock of fighting planes. Being by myself on this 
occasion and not able to see clearly I don't mind say- 
ing those Huns had me nervous. But it was such a 
glorious chance and would have been such a triumph 
if I could have bagged him, that it was worth taking 
much bigger risks than one would usually take. The 
only Frenchman I ever heard of who got one was Gap- 
tain Guynemer. I shall probably not have such a 
chance in six months, but if I do I shall certainly try 
to make better use of it. I am sort of ashamed of my- 
self for not sticking to that Hun and perhaps accom- 
plishing something. 

The day before my experience with the Gotha I 
went out in the morning with the chief of the Escadrille, 
Captain Deullin. It was the first time I had been 
out alone with him on a Hun hunting expedition and I 
was very glad of the opportunity to watch him fighting, 
for he is an old hand at the game and there is probably 
no one in the French Army more skilful than he. I 
am glad to say that I think he will now take me with 
him as a protection for his rear in other expeditions 
of the kind, and this protection business often gives 



LOO THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

the protector some splendid opportunities, not to 
mention the lot thai one can learn by watching. I 
was glad to sec that the captain's methods of attack 
were the same as 1 had been trying, although of course 
much more skilfully executed, lie has a faster ma- 
chine than mine ami left me a little behind several 
times when he was attacking a two-seater. I only got 
a few very long shots at one. 

He had one tight with some single-seater fighting 
machines which turned out better. I was right be- 
hind the captain and started down with him when he 
dove down to attack the highest of several Boche single- 
seaters. In my capacity as rear guard I was necessarily 
several hundred yards behind, and about the time that 
I started to follow the captain I caught sight of an- 
other Hun coming in behind me and on the same level. 
He was a good way off, but started io shoot at me, so 
1 had to turn and chase him. When I started after 
him he also turned and started to run but I had no 
more than begun to follow him when still another put in 
an appearance above me. and 1 had to get out. In the 
meantime the captain had gotten close to his man but 
had to stop shooting at him to defend himself against 
a couple of others and in doing so lost sight of the Hun 
he had attacked. As soon as we landed, he told me 
he could not understand why the fellow had not fallen, 
for he had seen at least ten of his tracer bullets fired at 
point blank range apparently go right into the pilot's 
seat. Sure enough, a few minutes later confirmation 
came in that a Hun had fallen at that time and place. 
This made nineteen for Captain Peullin. 

The afternoon that Captain Peullin got his Hun he 
asked me to go with him in his motor to have a look 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 101 

at the Boche as the machine had fallen in our lines, 
and besides we were not entirely sure whether the one 
reported was the same as the one the captain had shot. 
We had some little difliculty in locating the spot, for 
the report had not been entirely accurate, and neither 
I nor the Captain had been able to see the Hun fall, 
having been otherwise occupied for the moment. 
Also, the fight took place some 15,000 feet up, and at 
this height no matter how hard you try to watch a 
machine it is usually lost to view before it hits the 
ground. 

The trip to the lines was just what I have been want- 
ing to do ever since I have reached the front, and it 
goes without saying it was most interesting. I have 
seen the same places hundreds of times from the air, 
but you do not get the detail that way. As you ap- 
proach the lines, you come first to a country of occa- 
sional old shell holes, and villages with here and there 
a smashed house. As you go on, the shell holes become 
more and more frequent and the villages more and more 
completely demolished. We passed on to little ham- 
lets, now used principally for the quartering of troops, 
where the gaping holes in the walls and the splintered 
trees gave evidence of the shelling they had received 
in the days before the Hun was driven back. Then 
we drove through what is probably the most famous 
city * of the war, once a good sized town, with many 
fine buildings, among them a beautiful cathedral. 
I looked carefully to see and without exaggeration there 
is not a building left with a roof, or that is more than 
a gutted shell. Few of them are even this — the walls 
also being blown in, and the cathedral is typical of 
* Ypres. 



102 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

practically every house in the city, a pile of rubbish and 
broken stones, with here and there the battered frag- 
ment of a wall still standing. We shall never be able 
to make the Huns really pay for the damage they have 
done, but one cannot but look forward to the day when 
we shall be in a position to give them a bit of their own 
medicine in their own country. 

The desolation of this city was as complete as it is 
possible to be in a city, but not so complete I think as 
that of the countiy beyond, where the hardest fighting 
of the war has now been raging for almost the past three 
and a half years. This country defies all description, 
and as I have told you before, the nearest approach 
to it I know of in America is a northern swamp where 
a district once destroyed by a forest fire has been 
flooded. Every tree is a splintered, leafless wreck, 
killed as though by lightning, where indeed there is 
more than a stump left. The ground is a mass of 
merging holes, filled with water. It is easy to under- 
stand why the men are always in mud when one passes 
through this region, for as you drive along the road 
you are as if on a dike with the surrounding land be- 
low you. There are little ridges of course but in 
many places the country lies below the road as do the 
marshes when you are approaching the Jersey coast. 
The ground is strewn with the wreckage of the war, 
especially near the road, broken wagons and junk of all 
kinds; once we came upon a number of used up tanks; 
now and then you pass a cemetery with its thousands of 
little wooden crosses, some bearing the name and rank 
and the legend "Killed in action June 27, 1916" for 
instance; others simply mark the grave of an unknown 
soldier fallen there. One cannot but think of how much 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 103 

lies behind each one of those little wooden crosses be- 
sides the bones which rest beneath it. 

We went in the motor as far as the road would allow 
us, perhaps 1000 yards from the first line, and then got 
out and walked over about 200 yards to an artillery 
officer's dug-out, to inquire for our Hun. The walking 
reminded me a little of wading for reedbirds in one of 
those very soft marshes on the river at home where 
you sink in up to your knees. We found that we were 
within 800 yards of where the Boche had fallen that 
morning, but it was practically dark by this time 
so we could not go up to have a look at him; this was 
disappointing as the machine was a new German type 
which we wished to see.* The artillery officer had seen 
him fall and said that he had lost his wings on his 
way down, and all he saw coming was the body of the 
machine. The place we got to was up with the light 
artillery and of course considerably ahead of the 
heavy. By the time we started back, it was dark, 
blowing hard, with rain, and a more dismal sight you 
never beheld. Every second or so the desolate country 
would be lit up by the flash of one of our big guns, im- 
mediately followed by the crash of the explosion and 
the shriek of the shell as it passed out over our heads to 
the Boche lines. Added to this, the whine and crash 
of the shells coming the other way, and in the distance 
on the front lines themselves, the rat-tat-tat of the 
machine guns and the star shells going up and hanging 
in the sky for a few seconds, with the brilliancy of an 
arc light. When moving in this country at night one 
can of course carry no light, but the flashes of the guns 
light up the road like very vivid heat lightning on a 
♦Pfalz. 



104 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

summer night. It is easy enough to distinguish the 
different sounds made by a "depart" and an " arrive," 
especially after one has had a little practice listening 
to both ends of the anti-aircraft gun firing, but I 
believe soldiers in the trenches can also distinguish 
between the whine of their own shells going out and 
the enemy's shells coming in. Of course if you hap- 
pen to be able to spot the individual report of a gun 
and then hear the shell afterwards, you know that it is 
one of your own, but when this is not possible it is hard 
for a beginner to know which is which. They sound 
very much like a falling bomb. 

I do not envy those infantrymen and artillerymen 
their jobs, but generally they would not swap with us 
for anything, so we are both satisfied with our branches 
of the service, and I guess it is just as well that it is 
that way. It is little wonder though that men get shell 
shock, sitting in one of those shell-holes — up to your 
middle in cold water and listening to the whine of the 
shells and wondering when one is coming to share your 
hole with you — must get frightfully on a man's nerves. 
As we retraced our steps across that bleak wind-swept 
morass in the face of the cold rain, groping around the 
shell craters by the light of the guns, I was mighty glad 
I had a warm bed to go to where I could only just hear 
those guns rumbling in the distance. 

Bergues, November 13 
Yesterday afternoon we had a little ceremony in 
honor of Captain Guynemer at which his last citation 
before the army was read and some of the other men 
received decorations. Just before it started, a most 
unfortunate accident occurred, about which I shall 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 105 

tell you, as it throws a little light on the death of 
Oliver. We were all standing on the field and a patrol 
from the escadrille was just going out. I could not go 
along, for as I told you my gasoline tank had to be 
changed. One of our men who went up was a captain, 
a new pilot, who had only been here about a week, and 
was starting on his first patrol over the lines. He had 
gotten up about 600 metres and as I watched him he 
executed a "tournant" and did it pretty well for a new 
man. My attention had been attracted however by the 
rough manner in which he handled his machine, the 
smooth grace of an old hand was lacking. When he 
turned right side up after the "tournant," instead of 
going on he dove vertically on his nose at the same time 
doing a half turn in a vrille very slowly; then he dove 
straight again and then another slow turn; every min- 
ute I thought he would pull up, until he got within a 
couple of hundred metres of the ground, when I saw 
that something was wrong; he kept right on diving on 
his nose until he disappeared behind some trees half a 
mile away, then came a dull thud, and we knew that 
that was the end of the little captain. Such things are 
not pleasant to see; no one says much, for there is 
nothing to say, and you just stand there helpless and 
wait for the end. What happened to make him fall no 
one knows, and you can only guess that upon doing the 
"tournant" he must have gotten rattled, and lost his 
head. So far as one could see, nothing broke about the 
machine, and I flew the same one a few weeks ago when 
mine was out of order, did barrel rolls and other forms 
of acrobacy and everything seemed perfectly strong. 
I was very sorry, for the captain seemed like a nice little 
fellow; he was a captain in the infantry who had been 



L06 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

transferred to the aviation. Later in the afternoon I 
walked over to where the machine had fallen to have 
a look at it for I thought at the time thai that was 

probably just the sort of a fall that Oliver had taken 
ami I wanted to see if the wreck of this machine looked 
anything like the picture I sent you. What I found 
was almost a replica of that picture, which merely goes 
tn confirm the report Ave received of the manner of 
Oliver's fall. In his ease however it is of course pos- 
sible that the machine was further demolished by shell 
(ire. 

Had some excitement to-day but I cannot write you 
about it now if this letter is to catch the next boat, 
so you will have to wait until next time. 

Tlkssis-Bellkville. November IS, 1917. 
Here T am again at Plessis-Belleville and it seems a. 
long time since Oliver and I left here together for the 
front in July. I flew an old machine down this morn- 
ing and now have a little while before my train leaves 
for Paris. You see when a plane is considered no 
longer lit for service at the front, it is sent here to be 
used up for instruction purposes. The fact that a 
machine can no longer be used at the front does not 
necessarily mean that it is not strong, but simply that 
it has lost some of its efficiency and cannot climb as 
well or By as fast as it once could. I had to come to 
Paris anyhow to get my own new machine and fly it 
back and as we had at the eseadrille an old machine 
to be taken to the rear the captain told me to fly it down 
instead of going by train. As you may guess I vastly 
prefer the former method, for the trip is an interesting 
one and the time required to go by air is about one 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 107 

hour and a half as compared with fourteen or fifteen 
by train. It was quite misty this morning so that I 
flew all the way at about six or eight hundred metres. 
Not being able to fly high and the visibility being very 
poor I came by way of the sea, keeping it always in 
sight until I struck the mouth of the Somme, then fol- 
lowed the river to Amiens and from there on down the 
railroad. The country is still new to me and I did 
not wish to get myself lost in the mist. Going back, 
if the weather permits I shall take the direct route 
behind the front, for I am anxious to get to know this 
section of the country. It may be very useful when 
we are in the U. S. Army. The return trip should 
also be very interesting, as it will take me over the 
country evacuated by the Germans last spring, the 
famous battlefield of the Somme and also that of Arras. 

All this explains why I am now at Plessis-Belleville 
writing to you in the little Cafe de la Place, where I 
lived while I was here in training, and of which I think 
I have sent you a picture. To-morrow morning I shall 
go to the great distributing station for aeroplanes near 
Paris, see that my machine is all right, take it up and 
try it out, and then next day (weather permitting) 
fly it back to the front. 

Being here again, reminds me very much of Oliver, 
for it was here that I really came to know, and I hope 
appreciate him, and we did have lots of fun, flying to- 
gether, and in off times taking long walks through a 
beautiful country and talking in frightful French to 
the people we met by the way. He knew more words 
than I did, but I think I could beat him sometimes on 
accent — New England and French inflections are a 
trifle different. 



108 THE WW OF THE EAGLE 

1 have been thinking a .muni deal aboul Oliver lately, 
and 1 am sorry thai I shall have to be again the Bender 
of bad tidings fco his father, for last Thursday 1 found 
his grave. 1 told you in one of my Letters Dot long 
ago about a eouple oi the Frenchmen in our esoadrille 
having been brought down, one was named Joh'vel ami 
the other Dron; you have pictures oi them both, ami 
l remember 1 Bent you one of Dron, with a cigarette in 
his mouth and a little puppy in his anus. Captain 
Deullin went up to the linos Borne time ago to see if 
he could find where they had fallen, and when he came 
back reported that he had found the graves of both. 
He had not told me that he was going, for 1 should cer- 
tainly have asked to go with him ; he reported, to my 
surprise, that he had found the grave of Jolivet in al- 
most exactly the same spot where T thought Oliver 
hail fallen. Thursday the whole escadrille went up 
behind the lines to arrange the graves of the two 
Frenchmen, 1 was glad to go and also glad of the 
opportunity to at last look personally for some trace 
of Oliver. When we arrived at what the captain 
thought was the grave of Jolivet, lying scattered about 
it were the fragments of a shattered plane. I at once 
searched for a number, and soon found what I was 
looking for, 1429, almost obliterated by the rains of 
the past three months. That was the number of 
Oliver's machine, and in the midst of the wreckage 
was a rough grave; at its head a wooden cross that 
some one had made by nailing two pieces of board 
together, and on the cross written with an indelible 
pencil "lei repose un aviateur inconnu."* All around 
the grave a mass oi shell holes tilled with water, ami 

*l\crc lies an unknown aviator. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 109 

the other decorations of a modern battlefield. I 
tried to describe to you before what it is like, and this 
was but a repetition of the rest, that is, at least in this 
sector. A flat low country torn almost beyond recogni- 
tion by the shells, here and there the dead shattered 
trees sticking up from the mud and water, occasionally 
a dead horse and everywhere quantities of tangled 
barbed wire and cast-off material. Just beyond (lie 
grave was the German first line before the attack on 
August lGth. It is marked by a row of half- wrecked 
concrete shelters, pill boxes the English call them. 
Just beyond this a village,* but I stood on what had 
been the main street and did not know that there; hurl 
been a village there until the captain showed it to me 
on the map. This little town has been so completely 
blown to pieces and churned into the mud that there 
is literally nothing left to distinguish it from the sur- 
rounding country. Not even a foundation stone left 
standing. 

The grave is only about 1500 yards from our first 
lines and not far in front of the heavy artillery. I 
have marked it exactly on a map, and there can be 
no doubt whatever that this is where Oliver is buried. 
Although scattered and still further broken by the 
weather, the wreck of the machine is recognizable 
as the same as that shown in the picture taken by 
the priest, the same broken roof of a house in the 
foreground, and in the distance the same sticks and 
splintered trees. 

I am having a plate engraved by one of our mechanics 
who was an engraver before the war; on it will be 
"Oliver Moulton Chad wick, of Lowell, Massachusetts, 
* Langcwaedc. 



110 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

U. S., a Pilot in the French Aviation, born September 
23rd, 1S88; enlisted January 22nd, 1917; Killed in 
action August 14th, 1917." This will show that he 
was an American pilot in the French service, enlisted 
as a volunteer before America entered the war. I 
think the simpler such things are, the better. Around 
the grave now is a little black wooden railing, which we 
put there, and a neat oaken cross, on the cross a bronze 
palm, with the inscription "Mort pour la patrie." 
The captain and I are going back soon to put the plate 
on the cross and I have bought a little French flag and 
an American one, for I think he would like this. Also 
I thought I would try and get a few flowers. The spot 
should be a peaceful one after the war, for it will take 
years to make anything out of that country again. 
Just at present there is a great deal of artillery close 
behind ; the roar of the guns was almost incessant when 
we were there and a stream of shells went whining over- 
head on the way to the Hun lines. 

Paris. November 23rd. 
In my last letter to father I mentioned at the end 
that I had had some excitement, which I would write 
to him about. That was ten days ago now, but I 
have really not had time since to write. What I re- 
ferred to, was this. That afternoon I had gotten an- 
other American in one of the escadrilles in our group 
to go out with me and protect my tail while we tried 
to see if we could not find some Huns. For a while we 
did not see much, and then below us we spotted five 
single-seater fighting machines, who had evidently made 
a little excursion into our lines, and were just going back 
into their own. We attacked them together. My 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 111 

companion pulled up a little too soon to have allowed 
him a reasonable chance of accomplishing anything 
I think, but I, on the other hand, got in a little too far. 
You may think it sounds foolish or as if one was blow- 
ing a bit to talk about attacking five when we were 
only two, but an attack does not necessarily mean that 
you charge into the middle of them and mix it up. 
On the contrary you can by diving at high speed from 
above get in some shots and then by using your great 
speed climb up above them again out of reach before 
they can get in a shot. If you remember to leave your 
motor on as you are diving and in this way to come 
down as fast as possible, without at the same time 
going so fast as to interfere with your shooting, the 
great speed gained in this way will enable you to 
make a short steep climb and thus regain a position 
perhaps two hundred metres above the heads of the 
Huns where they cannot effectively shoot at you. I 
am now of course speaking only of an attack on a 
group of single-seater machines. If the engagement 
ends here the chances of bringing one down are not 
great, but you can sometimes by such methods and by, 
for instance, hitting some part of one of the machines, 
so worry the Huns that one will in the general confu- 
sion get separated from his comrades so that you can 
get a fair crack at him. This was about the first time 
I had had a chance to try it, however, and I made a 
botch of it. I saw I was getting in too close, but did, 
I think, hit one of the Huns, though not seriously. In 
my haste to get out, I made a false manoeuvre, and 
fell on my nose instead of climbing up, as I should 
have done. The result was, that the Hun I had been 
shooting at and who had turned, got behind me on my 



112 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

tail in a most unpleasant position, where he could shoot 
and I could not. Naturally I did not let him stay 
there long, but had io dodge and boat a retreat. He 
did manage to hit my machine a couple of times, one 
bullet through a wing and another through the body 
of the machine about six inches behind me, but never 
touched me and did my plane no harm whatever. It 
did not take much thinking to see that my little ma- 
noeuvre had been very badly executed. 

My companion and 1" started off again to see what 
else we could find, and 15 minutes later I spotted six 
more Huns in almost the same place. This time four 
two-seaters with two single-seaters above and behind 
them acting as protection. The two-seaters were far 
enough below not to have to bother about, so I tried 
the same plan again and came down on the rear of 
one of the single-seaters. I blazed away at him and 
he made the same manoeuvre as the first one, but this 
time I kept shooting until very close, then sailed up 
over his head, did a quick turn, and dropped on his 
tail again. Before following him, I looked to see what 
the other single-seater was up io, and saw him bravely 
making tracks for home, leaving his friend to shift for 
himself. I therefore kept after the first, and poured 
in all about 200 shots into him, many of which I am 
sure hit the machine, for I could see the tracer bullets 
apparently go almost into the pilot. I think my first 
burst of bullets put his engine out of business for he 
did not seem able to dive very fast and I could catch 
him with ease. 

Several times when he would do a renversement he 
would turn up and slide off on one wing, as though he 
were going to fall and I thought I had him sure. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 113 

Three times I was bo close, only about 30 feet, that 
J had to pull up to avoid running into him. I could 
Bee Oi': Hun sitting there, staring up at me through 
his goggles, the color of his bonnet and all the details 
of the show. This kept up from 4000 to 1800 metres, 
and he never got in a shot, 1 am glad to say. Why he 
did not fall, I do not know. There is however always 
a very good reason why they get away, I think, and 
thai is because you do not hold quite close enough. I 
know the experience taught me a lesson about being 
too hasty in my shooting. I finally had to let him go 
because I caught sight of nine of his brethren coming 
to his rescue and when they started after me and be- 
gan to shoot I thought discretion the better part of 
valor and got out. At this time the Boche was flop- 
ping about in the air and letting out a considerable 
quantity of smoke. 

Being busy in the getting out, I could no longer 
watch rny would-be victim, but the American who 
was with me and who had stayed above as a sort of 
rear guard was able to watch him and said that the 
last he saw of the Hun he was still going down in a 
spiral with black smoke coming out of his tail. The 
latter means a fire on board and if this was the case I 
think that Hun's flying days are over unless he gets 
a pair of wings in some Hun heaven — maybe they will 
have such a place full of beer and sausages — certainly 
Christians could not be expected to associate with 
them. Be that as it may, I am sorry to say I could 
not get any confirmation by some one on the ground of 
the Boche having been seen to fall, so he does not count 
officially for me; if he fell, as I think he did, he came 
down considerably in his own lines. I wish I could 



114 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

have gotten him at the start for he then would have 
fallen in our lines, and the machine was one of the 
new type. Mais si le Boche est mort, c'est la premiere 
chose.* As the Frenchmen say when they bag one 
"Un moins qui mange la soupe ce soir." f If that Boche 
ever did get down alive I am sure in my own mind that 
he is at least at present sojourning in the hospital. 
My manoeuvring worked out all right this time and 
if I can catch another like that and do not get him 
beyond question, I shall promptly admit that I am a 
punk aviator. 

The next day I was out on another expedition with 
one of the lieutenants. We ran into a regular fleet of 
Hun machines, there were five of the huge Gotha 
bombers which carry three or four men each and 
about eighteen single-seaters protecting them. The 
lieutenant has been in the aviation since the beginning 
of the war and said he had never seen so many Huns 
at once. He tried to get a shot at the Gothas and in 
so doing flew directly under five Albatross single-seaters 
whom he entirely failed to see. I was some eight 
hundred yards behind him at the time for he was flying 
one of the new 220 H. P. Spads such as the one I am 
about to get and when he had put on full speed in order 
to attack the Gothas, he left my old bus far behind. 
I saw the Huns coming down on my companion and 
followed him as fast as I could but they attacked him 
before I could even get within long range of them. 
Luckily for him however they began shooting too far 
away, put a couple of bullets through his wings and 
warned him. He promptly stood on his nose and 

* But if the Boche is dead, that is the main thing, 
t One less who eats supper this evening. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 115 

dove vertically for six thousand feet with his motor at 
extreme high speed. I never saw a machine go down 
so fast before and it is a wonder he did not pull his 
wings off. I think he would have in anything but a 
Spad. As it was, he stretched all the bracing wires 
between his wings out of tension and bent the wings 
themselves back an inch or two so that the whole 
plane had to be taken apart and re-regulated before he 
could fly it again. When I saw that the lieutenant 
had escaped I pulled out myself, for the five Huns who 
had jumped on him had not followed him down, and 
being still above me, there was not much that I could 
do. Looked around for some Hun who did not have 
so many friends with him but seeing nothing better 
than another group of five below me thought I would 
have a try at them. Being by myself I had to keep 
above them and could not get a close shot but took a 
crack at the rear man anyhow and at least succeeded 
in making him sore. When I started to shoot the 
Boches turned and then as I pulled up above and to 
one side of them, the Hun at whom I had been shoot- 
ing, sat his machine back on her tail and took a shot 
at me. I was at least one hundred and fifty yards from 
him and flying at right angles to him, a most difficult 
shot, but at that he managed to put a bullet through 
the side of my plane which missed my foot by two 
inches and brought up in the bed of the motor with a 
thud. It did not break anything however and I dug it 
out with my knife when I got home. 

Since then I have not flown over the lines, due partly 
to bad weather and also to my trip to Paris. The 
little delay here is certainly worth it to get such a good 
machine. I shall be much safer in it for it will fly 



116 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

faster than anything the Huns have, will climb higher, 
and much more quickly than my old one, and mounts 
two machine guns of an improved type, thereby 
greatly reducing the chance of gun jams. With it and 
any kind of weather 1 certainly hope that I shall soon 
be able fco write you of a Boche that goes down and 
stays down officially. 

Bergues. Nov. 27th, 1917. 
My trip back from Paris was most interesting, but 
rather too eventful for comfort, considering it was an 
ordinary cross-country flight, with no Huns to compli- 
cate matters. I came, as I told you I would, by way 
of the front, going from Paris to Compiegne, and then 
over the territory evacuated last spring. The battle- 
field of the Somme looks much like our own sector 
here, villages, fields, trees, everything blown to atoms, 
except the Somme is more extensive, and one flies for 
miles and miles over this sort of country. I do not 
think, however, from the look I had at it that the 
Somme wreck is quite as complete, except in spots, 
as that here, for the fighting there, terrific as it was, 
was not as long drawn out as it has been here, and the 
country is not nearly so low and wet. A marsh is a 
dreary sort of a place at best, unless it happens to be 
full of ducks. I passed the scene of the recent English 
advance before Cambrai, and could see the guns blaz- 
ing away, although I did not go very close. Not hav- 
ing as yet any guns on my machine, I was naturally 
not anxious to fall in with some Boches. That ad- 
vance by the British was certainly a great stroke and 
will I hope tend to relieve the tension on the Italian 
front. It does beat the devil how every time the Huns 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 117 

are beginning to feel the pinch they succeed in pulling 
off a coup of some sort to cheer their people up. Servia, 
Roumania, Russia and now the Italian success — each 
one must certainly add months at least to the duration 
of the war. 

Everything went all right until I struck Arras, when 
I was met by a very strong north-west wind which very 
much reduced my speed. I had arrived at the field 
near Paris, ready to start in plenty of time, but my 
motor had not run properly at first so that I was de- 
layed in getting off until I had only just sufficient time 
to make the trip before dark. When I left Paris the 
wind had been a little in my favor and not particularly 
strong. The trip down by the long route had only 
taken me an hour and three-quarters, so that as I 
was returning by the direct road, and left Paris at 
20 minutes before three, I thought I would certainly get 
here by half past four when it begins to get dark in this 
countiy. The wind however shifted and became very 
strong and to add to my troubles my motor began to 
run badly, missing and throwing fire out of the exhaust, 
so that I had to keep constantly watching to see that the 
side of the machine did not get dangerously hot. Then 
I ran into a storm, which seems to have been bad all 
over the country; clouds, rain and mist forced me 
to fly under 200 metres, and darkness fell very sud- 
denly. 

All this makes it hard to find your way in a country 
you have never been over before, and in trying to 
figure out just what my motor was going to do, I got 
off the little strip of map I had and lost my bearings. 
I had a compass of course and knew approximately 
where I was, but as my gasoline was almost gone, and 



118 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

it was getting very dark, the only sensible thing was 
to land for the night. I accordingly searched for an 
aviation field, for in a hilly wooded country such as I 
was over, where good landing places are scarce, one is 
very likely to break one's machine in trying to land in 
an ordinary field, when one cannot see much and there 
is a heavy wind. I searched for 20 minutes, and al- 
though aviation fields are generally numerous behind 
the front, I could not find one for the life of me. I have 
had some rough rides before this, but this one beat 
them all. Our machines are strong and stable, but the 
gale threw mine around like a canoe in a high sea. 
Under such conditions you will often strike a pocket 
in the air and the machine will drop so quickly that 
you shoot up out of your seat until pulled down by 
the safety belt. With a little room to spare under 
you, it makes no difference, but it is most unpleasant 
when very close to the ground. I much dreaded 
breaking my new machine in landing, for it is an 
excellent one of a sort which is scarce and hard to get 
and for which the captain had kindly given me a special 
order. Finally it got so dark that it was no use look- 
ing further for an aviation field and it was absolutely 
necessary to land without delay. I saw a field facing 
into the wind and in the lee of a woods, so that the 
force of the wind would be less, also some sort of an 
encampment next to the field where I thought they 
would probably take me in. I accordingly dropped 
into it with all the care I could muster and certainly 
broat lied a sigh of relief when safely on the ground with 
everything intact. I would not have broken that 
machine for anything for it would have seriously de- 
layed my work out here before I could have gotten 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 119 

another. You can yourself generally get through a 
smash in landing with nothing worse than a few 
bruises, but a ditch or a hole in the ground is all it 
takes to turn a machine on its back and ruin it. I 
noticed a weather report saying the wind had blown 
60 miles an hour that night on the coast and observa- 
tions taken the next morning at a field near where I 
landed, showed 40 miles an hour, and this after the 
wind had somewhat gone down. It must have been 
blowing about 50 miles that evening, all of which 
goes to show how the war has advanced aviation, 
when one thinks of how a few years ago the machines 
were such that an ordinary good breeze made flyers 
hesitate about going up. As soon as I landed, a num- 
ber of Tommies came running up and then an officer, 
the latter evidently surprised to find my machine right 
side up, for he had thought that I was going to land in 
a plowed field near by. As a matter of fact, I fell 
into great good luck, for the field where I landed was 
as smooth and firm as a prepared aerodrome. 

With the help of the Tommies, we pushed my machine 
up under the lee of the woods, tethered it, covered up 
the engine and had a guard put over it for the night 
by the major of an English infantry regiment that 
was resting in the neighborhood. Then the officer 
who had first appeared, a captain, took me in tow, and 
insisted that I come to his quarters for the night. I 
found that he was in command of a company of Chinese 
coolies, who had originally been stationed near us,* 
but had been forced to move because of the bombing 
they got from the Huns. One of these labor com- 
panies is much larger than the ordinary infantry com- 
* At St. Pol-sur-Mer. 



L20 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

pany. This one was acting as foresters, working in 
the woods, getting out the timber which is so necessary 
for the construction of the quickly made roads across 
the battlefield over which the artillery and supplies 
are brought up. The company is now enjoying per- 
fect quiet and they deserve it after the way (hey caught 
it at their former camp. That camp was only about 
half a mil* 1 from where we used to be, and almost every 
dear night the Huns would bomb it. No matter what 
else (hey bombed, they always seemed to save a few 
for- (his camp. We used to watch the bombs fall, and 
wonder how many poor Chinks went up in smoke with 
each one. As a matter of fact, their casualties were 
heavy and the ignorant Chinamen were convinced 
that the Roches had it in for (hem particularly. You 
could see (hem any clear evening hiking across the 
fields with their blankets on their backs to sleep in the 
country, rather than stay in their camp. They be- 
came terrified, and it was very difficult to keep them in 
hand; the officers sometimes finding missing men many 
miles from home. The officer told me of one instance 
where a bomb fell right through the roof of a little 
wooden hut, where four coolies were sleeping, but 
fortunately went deep into the soft soil before it 
exploded. The hut went straight up in the air and 
the coolies in every direction, but by some miracle none 
of them were hurt, except one who had his back burnt, 
but has since recovered. He is now in the hospital 
again, as the result of a friendly stab from one of his 
comrades. Naturally all this bombing did not nourish 
a very friendly feeling between (he coolies and their 
tormentors the Huns. The coolie docs not care a rap 
whether Germany is at war with China or England 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 121 

or any one else, and I doubt whether many of them 
even know it; but these particular coolies do hold a 
most vivid and personal grudge against the Hun for 
having showered them with bombs and slaughtered 
their pals. The officer told me that they know the 
difference between the black cross of the German 
machine and the round cocardc of an Allied. He men- 
tioned that it was a good thing for my health that I 
was not a Hun who had been forced to land in their 
midst, for the coolies would undoubtedly have torn 
me limb from limb and the officers could not possibly 
have stopped them. 

In a little bit of a hut that served as a mess room I 
found three other English officers, and they took me 
in and were most kind and cordial, as indeed are all the 
Englishmen whom I have met over here. These fel- 
lows appreciate that we are all fighting for the same 
thing, and are most anxious to help out in any way 
they can. I have been forced to ask their assistance 
on several occasions, and there is nothing they will not 
do to make you feel at home and lend a helping hand. 
I found the same thing the next morning when the 
captain and I walked about four miles to a field of 
the Royal Flying Corps, which I had missed in the dark 
the night before, to ask for some gasoline, and tools 
to fix my engine. Immediately the major in command 
gave me a motor lorrie, all the gasoline I wanted, tools 
and two mechanics to fix the motor. He also wanted 
me to stay for lunch and invited me to come back for 
the night if I could not get off. On another occasion, 
of which I long ago wrote to you, when I had another 
breakdown, the officer in command offered all the 
above things and besides sent me home 30 miles in one 



122 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

of his motors. It is this spirit and the way they fight 
that makes one admire them von- much. 1 enclose 
you another list o( citations for the V. C. as an example 
of the way these Englishmen go after t ho Huns. In 
reading these, remember thai they are the official cita- 
tions which, if anything, understate the facts and arc 
not the flowery exaggerations of some newspaper 

reporter. 

To return to the hut and the English officers o'i the 

labor company 1 spent a most pleasant evening with 
them, sitting about their little stove, ami swapping 

yarns. One of them had an extra bed in his tent, where 
he put me up for the night, each one insisting on giving 
up one of his blankets for me. I was mighty glad of 
them, as it was cold, and 1 thought the tent, would take 
to aeroplaning itself at any minute, the way the gale 
howled outside. I also got three good meals, as T 
could not get my machine ready to leave before the 
following afternoon.: 

It is remarkable what a collection of men one will 
run into over here, especially in the English Army; 
of my four hosts last night, one had been a Methodist. 

Episcopal Missionary in the Malay Peninsula, and 

spoke Chinese, another came from Siam, another from 
England, and the captain from Winnipeg, Canada, with 
a wife from l.ansdale. near Doylestown, Pa., where 
he told me she now is. The fellow from Siam could 
not speak a word of Chinese, and it was most amusing 
to hear him cussing out his coolie boy servant in Eng- 
lish, the boy not understanding a word of what was 
being said io him; one notices this trait in both the 
English and French, when they can't make some one 
o( another tongue understand them they often pour 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 123 

out a perfect stream of talk to him which he could riof, 
possibly understand without a very thorough knowledge 
of the speaker's language. 

Berqueb, November 28th, 1917. 
T forgot to tell you one or two rather amusing stories 
about the coolies that I heard from the Engli-h officer. 
One day some coolies were Loading coal into a wagon 
and the sergeant of the gang had borrowed three Hun 
prisoners to help with the job; the Buna were filling 
sacks with coal and were casting them up to the coolies, 
when one of the latter, a great big strapping coolie, 
the largest of the lot, resting from his labor, stepped 
up to a Hun, and pointing his finger in his face, said 
"You bloody .German, you no good. Dunkirk Ziz-z-z- 
Boom! !" to which the Hun getting his meaning at 
once, replied: "Yes Dunkirk Ziz-z-z-z Boom! Ha- 
Ha-Ha!"; plainly indicating by the way he said it, 
that he was glad they had been bombed. He no 
sooner had the words out of his mouth when the big 
coolie jumped on him, grabbed him by the throat 
and the officers only got him off in time to keep him 
from killing that Hun ; he mussed him up in great style 
as it was. Another time, a yellow, dirty looking 
Chink met one of the other native soldiers, a coal black 
Kaffir boy; the Kaffir looked the Chink over and evi- 
dently decided he needed a bath, for he pointed at 
him and said "You washee, washee, good! [" The 
Chink looked nonplused for a minute or so, and at a 
loss for a fitting retort, then he grinned at the black 
Kaffir, and replied "You Washee, washee, no good ! !" 
Pretty good come back for the Chink, don't you think ? 
If one could only draw like Bairnsfather, one could 



124 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

make a funny picture out of the incident. ... I hope 
you can make sense out of this letter; I have been read- 
ing it over, and it seems to be chiefly a lot of corrections. 
Do you ever get sometimes so that you find the great- 
est difficulty in expressing what you wish to say, and 
then the next time, for no apparent reason, have no 
difficulty at all ? I seem to be in the former condition 
to-day, so will call a halt. 

Bergues, December Sth, 1917. 
You already know that from one cause or another, 
I have not been able to get out on the lines for some 
time, and when I finally did get out last Wednesday, it 
was exactly three weeks since I had last seen them; 
the same old lines, except a little more blown up, for 
there had been a great deal of artillery activity in 
part of the sector. On Wednesday I started out at 
nine in the morning on a patrol, with two Frenchmen, 
a lieutenant being the leader. We were on the lines 
for some time without seeing any Huns except well 
within their own lines, although once or twice I think 
I saw where some came on the lines, but the others 
evidently did not agree with me, and the Boches, if 
there were any, were too far off to justify my leaving 
the patrol and going to investigate. After a while 
however I noticed a two-seater of a type known as an 
Albatross which was flying up and down in his own 
lines. He was a long way off, but from the way he 
acted I thought he was just waiting for a clear path to 
slip across the lines, take his pictures or make some ob- 
servations, and slip back again. I have had several 
encounters with two-seaters in the same locality at 
about the same time of day, and at about the same 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 125 

altitude, and accordingly kept my eye on this fellow, 
to see what he would do. Sometimes he would go way 
back into his own territory until he was just a speck 
in the sky, and then again would come just above the 
lines, evidently see us, and turn back again. 

Now a patrol has the duty of protecting a certain 
sector and cannot go off and leave it, which is one rea- 
son why it does not usually offer the same chance to 
get a shot at the Huns that a voluntary chasse expedi- 
tion does. If for instance I had been there with another 
man just looking for Boches and with no sector to pro- 
tect, the thing to have done would obviously have been 
to fly deep into our own lines as if we were leaving, 
then climb up over that Hun's head and hang around 
with the sun at our backs, in the hope that he would 
not notice us, and wait for him to come into our terri- 
tory. If he would not do this, you could go to him, 
but it is always better to get them in your own lines if 
possible, for you can then get a better shot without 
having to spend half the time watching your own rear, 
and ending up by being forced to retreat by the Boche's 
comrades coming up in force. Once I left the patrol 
and started after this Hun, but he evidently saw me at 
once and dove back into his own lines; I saw that I 
could not get any kind of a shot at him, so decided to 
wait a little longer. I rejoined the patrol, and we 
made a tour of perhaps ten minutes. 

When we got back to the same place again, the lieu- 
tenant had gone down somewhat so that the Hun who 
was again just coming to the lines, evidently saw us 
some 400 metres below him instead of on the same 
level as before, thought he was safe, and came on into 
our lines. My companions apparently did not see 



126 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

him, so I turned to one side, flew directly under the 
Boche, going in the opposite direction, and then put 
myself below and behind him by doing a renversement. 
He saw me all the time, but I guess he thought he 
could do what he wanted, and get out before I could 
climb up and catch him. I must have followed him at 
least five minutes, first into our lines, then back above 
the lines again and then back once more. All the time 
he was manoeuvring to keep me from getting behind his 
tail, where he could not see me, and doing it well, for 
in order to try to stay behind him and to manoeuvre 
so as to give him only a long, hard, right-angle shot, 
I had to fly further than he did, and accordingly could 
not catch him quickly. I did get up to his level though 
(4,700 metres) and when he finally started back for his 
own lines, I got directly behind his tail and put after 
him as fast as my bus would travel. When I got within 
100 yards I tried to lay my sights on him, but being 
directly behind him the back draught from his propeller 
made my machine unsteady so that accurate shooting 
would have been impossible. I dove down 10 metres 
so as to get out of this and tried again. After my sad 
experience with the single-seater, which I wrote you 
about, and which I think went down, but was not con- 
firmed, I tried my best to shoot most carefully this time. 
All the time the Boche had not fired a shot, and from 
the way he acted I think he must have lost track of me 
behind his tail. Anyhow, I turned both my machine 
guns loose and thought I saw my bullets going about 
right. My left hand gun only fired about a dozen 
shots and then broke, the Boche at the same time, 
giving a twist to the right to get me out from under 
his tail. I kept on plugging away with my other gun, 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 127 

shooting for the place where the pilot sits, and again I 
thought I saw the bullets going into the right spot. 
After possibly thirty shots however my right gun also 
broke, and left me with nothing, and at the same time 
the Hun started to join in the shooting, firing perhaps 
twenty shots. By this time we were I suppose about 50 
or 60 metres apart and I got under his tail quickly to 
get out of the way, so that I could not see just where 
the Boche was shooting, but am sure he came nowhere 
near me. There never was a truer saying than that 
there is nothing which upsets a man's accuracy so much 
as having the other fellow putting them very close to 
him. That is I think one of the principal reasons why 
accurate quick shooting is so important, not only for 
the damage it does but because to come very close is 
one of the best means of defense, even if you actually 
do not hit. At all events, with two broken guns, close 
proximity to a Hun is not a healthy locality, so I 
turned on my nose and dove out behind my friend, 
at the same time watching him over my shoulder to 
try to keep myself protected by his tail. 

As I watched him he started diving until he was 
going down vertically and I could see the silver color 
of his bottom and of the under sides of his wings, with 
the black maltese crosses on them. It was a good 
sized machine, and very pretty, with the shining silver 
paint underneath to make it less visible against the 
sky and the sides just by the tail a brilliant red, this 
last being probably the individual mark of his escadrille, 
for I have seen the same kind of a machine before, 
painted in this way. When he got in a vertical nose 
dive, instead of going on straight down, he kept on 
turning until from flying toward his own lines right 



128 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

side up he was flying back into ours, upside down, and 
diving slowly in this position. This is of course a sign 
that all is not well on board and usually means that the 
pilot has fallen forward over his control stick, thus 
forcing the machine into a nose dive and then onto its 
back. You will read in the Flying Magazines about 
flying upside down but it is not what it is cracked up to 
be. One often gets on one's back in certain manoeuvres, 
but only for an instant, and with always sufficient cen- 
trifugal force to keep one securely in place. In learn- 
ing to loop the loop however I have gotten upside down 
for longer than I intended because the loop was not 
done properly, and it is not pleasant. You start to fall 
out and even though your belt holds you pretty tight 
in your seat, there is a tendency to grab the side of the 
machine; then whatever dirt is in the bottom of the 
machine falls over you, the oil, etc., fizzles out of the 
top of its tank and the motor starts to splutter and 
wants to stop due to the gasoline not feeding properly. 
All this and everything being upside down, gives you a 
queer feeling in your middle, and although in some 
specially constructed machines I believe it is possible 
to fly upside down, it is not at all my idea of a good time. 
Hence when I saw my friend the Hun flying into our 
lines with his wheels in the air I thought he must be 
pretty sick, but after my previous experience, was 
expecting every minute to see him come to and fly 
home, while I watched him helpless, with two guns 
that would not work. I accordingly dove after him, 
holding my controls, first with one hand, and then the 
other, and working with first the right and then the 
left gun, and trying each in the hope of getting one 
of them going, and taking a few more shots. At the 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 129 

same time, it is necessary to watch your own rear to 
see that no one is after you, so that between this and 
trying to keep close to the Boche I had little time to 
spare. Pretty soon some English machines came over 
my head, which relieved my mind very much as to the 
rear, and allowed me to concentrate on the Boche and 
my guns. I worked away and incidentally said some 
things I never learned in Sunday-school, but it is ex- 
asperating when you could get a good shot and your 
gun wont work and you have visions of what should 
be an easy victim escaping you. There was nothing 
to do though in this case, for upon returning to the 
field, I found both my guns not simply jammed but 
actually broken, one so that it had to be taken off the 
machine and replaced. 

While trying to fix the guns in the air I kept glancing 
down at the Boche; sometimes he was on his back, 
sometimes on his nose, and again diving almost nor- 
mally, which was what made me think he might come 
to life. The machine was however evidently completely 
uncontrolled; I chased him down almost 4000 metres, 
faster than I have ever come down before, so fast that 
when we reached 1000 metres he was not more than 
perhaps 400 metres ahead of me. A quick, great 
change of altitude like this is most unpleasant, as your 
ears get all stopped up and it gives you a headache, 
but in a fight you do not at the time notice it, and this 
time I was very anxious to see just where the Boche 
fell so as to get him confirmed if he did go down. At a 
thousand metres however I had to pull up and use my 
hand pump, for all the pressure had run out of my gas 
tank, due to the unusually long dive with the motor 
shut down. I lost sight of the Boche and did not see 



130 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

him hit the ground but after my motor was running 
nicely again I flew on down to 200 metres over the battle 
field and searched for him, for he had fallen several 
kilometres within our lines, so that it was possible to 
go down low and have a look. Pretty soon I spotted 
him lying on his back in the mud, his top plane was 
mashed into the soft ground, but the rest of the machine 
was apparently remarkably intact when you consider 
the height from which he had fallen. Probably the 
machine flopped over flat on its back, or right side up, 
just before striking, and in this way the force of the fall 
was broken. 

Shortly after I got back to our field, the official con-: 
firmation came in from the lines. The pilot and ob- 
server were of course both dead. The pilot was I 
think killed by one of my shots, or at least completely 
knocked out, for there was nothing serious the matter 
with his machine, and it fell only because it was un- 
controlled. The machine gunner was however alive 
after I had stopped shooting for I heard him shoot after 
I had finished. If he had been any kind of a decent 
man, or in fact any one but a Hun, one could not 
but have felt sorry for him in such a situation. Not 
much fun falling 4,700 metres, especially going down 
comparatively slowly, knowing all the while what is 
coming at the end, and with some little time to think 
it over. Particularly bad I should think with a good 
machine, which only needs someone to set the controls 
straight in order to right it. Much better to catch on 
fire, or have the machine break, and get it over with 
right away. 

Also after having had experience with the same thing 
oneself, one cannot help thinking of the comrades 
of these men, standing around the aerodrome, and 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 131 

wondering why they don't come back, and again of 
the people at home, who after they get the report 
"Disparu," keep wondering and hoping for months 
whether perhaps they might not only have been taken 
prisoner. It is a brutal business at best, but when 
you stop to think for a moment of what these Huns 
have done, of the horrors they have committed, of the 
suffering they^have brought on innocent people, and of 
the millions of men dead before their time, all because 
of them, you don't feel much sympathy for the indi- 
vidual but rather look forward to the time when you 
can perhaps bag another. 

We had a most unpleasant accident here on Thanks- 
giving Day. There is a French Squadron of Voisin 
night bombers stationed on our flying field, and 
although they only cross the lines at night, they do 
considerable practice flying during the day time. On 
Thanksgiving Day afternoon one of their machines 
was going up for a practice flight at the same time 
that a patrol from this group was leaving the ground 
for a flight over the lines. There was not much wind 
at the time, but what there was of it was coming from 
the West, so that all machines leaving the field should 
have done so facing in that direction. To do this, 
however, the Voisin would have had to roll on the 
ground all the way across the field, and to save him- 
self this trouble the pilot started from just in front of 
his hangar flying South. A Spad was leaving the 
ground at the same time, going West. I was standing 
in front of our hangars and noticed the two machines 
approaching each other at right angles. Even before 
they got very close to one another, it was apparent 
that they must pass with very little room to spare, so 
I stopped and watched them. 



132 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

The two planes were only about thirty yards high, 
and just before they came together, the Spad pilot saw 
the Voisin and pulled his machine into a sharp turn in 
a desperate attempt to avoid a collision, one of his 
guns going off in the air as he did so. It was too late 
however, and the right wing of the Spad hooked into 
the left wing of the Voisin; this swung the Spad around 
and it charged head first into the front of the Voisin, 
and then pitched headlong to the ground. There was 
a terrific crash as the two planes came together, and 
the air was filled with flying splinters. The force of 
the collision turned the Voisin upside down and it 
burst into flames even before it touched the ground. 

M and I were nearest to the accident, only about 

a hundred yards away, and were so horrified that we 
just stood there for a second with our mouths open, 
too startled to move. Then we dashed across the 

field to the wreck, and M got his shoulder under 

the body of the Voisin and raised it up, while some 
of the Frenchmen and I dragged the men out of the 
blazing machine. There had been three men in it, 
two of whom were still in the body of the plane and 
as the wind was blowing the flames towards the rear, 
it was possible to get at the plaee where these men 
were. We dragged the pilot out, but his head was 
crushed, and he was obviously beyond helping. Then 
we dragged the observer out, and he was burning from 
head to foot, a bursting gasoline tank having evidently 
thrown its contents over him. The flames were shoot- 
ing up two feet in the air from the man's clothing. 
I jerked off a heavy sweater which I was wearing, and 
dropping on my knees beside him managed to put 
most of the fire out, by rubbing him over with the 




* § 



-a 



** 'in 

=3 5 






ESCADRILLE N. 73 133 

sweater, using it as a sort of a sponge. The poor fel- 
low's face and hands were burned black, and as we tore 
his clothes off, some very bad burns appeared over 
his ribs and on other parts of his body. 

While we were working on the observer, I happened 
to glance up and caught sight of the third occupant 
of the Voisin, a mechanic. He had been thrown out 
of the body of the machine and as it lay on its back, 
his feet were caught under the top wing, and his ankles 
apparently broken off. His arms had fallen over some 
of the wires and this held him erect as though he were 
standing up. The propeller of the Spad had evidently 
struck him in the face and had cut off the lower part 
of his jaw. His head was supported by some part of 
the machine and thus held in a natural position, and 
he stood there with his eyes wide open, staring at us, 
just as though he were alive. The place where he was 
caught was just behind the wings of the plane and 
right in the middle of the fire. The whole machine 
was a blazing furnace, and it was impossible to reach 
him. He was quite obviously dead anyhow, so it would 
have done no good, and we had to watch him burn up 
for all the world like a living man being burned at the 
stake, and a more gruesome sight I hope never to see. 

The wreck of the Spad was lying a little off to one 
side, and had not caught fire, but as we dragged the 
pilot out, a man whom I know very well, he certainly 
looked as though his days were ended, for his face was 
ghostly pale and smeared all over with blood. It 
turned out afterwards, however, that he was hardly 
hurt at all, just shaken up and a couple of holes punched 
in liis cheeks. In a week he was out of the Hospital 
and back with his squadron, as well as ever. The 



131 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

last I heard of the observer whom we dragged out of 
the burning Voisin, he was very sick, but was expected 
to recover. 

A sight such as the above and the sickening smell of 
roasting human flesh that goes with it, goes a long way 
to impress upon one the absolute necessity of constant 
watchfulness when leaving or landing upon an aero- 
drome, and the importance of the strict enforcement 
of the rules of the flying field. 

Bergues, December 9th, 1917. 
You said in your last letter that you do not wonder 
that the French ami English are tired of the war, and 
that they are entitled to rest after all they have been 
through. Of course they are sick of it and they have 
had a very hard time, but that hardly seems a suffi- 
cient reason for our not going after the Boche and 
trying to finish the war. I suppose you refer to my 
criticism of the attitude one sometimes sees which is 
typified by the question, "When is the war going to 
be over?" As though there was nothing to be done 
about it, a sort of a "When is it going to stop raining?" 
attitude instead of asking "How soon can we finish 
it?" The French have done much and done well, 
England has done and suffered much, and so will we 
before we arc through, but how about the Hun? He 
is fighting a lot of nations and has suffered in his home 
life much more than any of the great Allies, but he is 
still going strong. The answer is forty years of train- 
ing and preparation, combined with splendid system 
and conservation of energy, but eveu so it seems to 
me that he has more cause to be tired than we have. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 135 

Dunkirk. Dec. 24, 1917. 

The Group moved away from here two weeks ago 
and I should have gone with it but have been held over 
by a succession of troubles with my machine, coupled 
with some very bad weather. 

Our new sector of the front will be in the famous 
"Chemin des Dames" region on the Aisne, where the 
French made their last advance a month or so ago. 
It will be a relief to get away from this flat, uninterest- 
ing region where we have been so long, and to miss 
some of the fog and dampness that come in from the 
sea. The weather where the group now is* should be 
much more favorable for our work, and according to all 
accounts the sector presents much better chances to 
get a shot at the Boche. I went there by train a few 
days ago while waiting for my machine to be repaired 
and the day I was there a Hun machine similar to the 
one I brought down came over our mess and that is 
20 kilometres behind the lines. 

He was of course very high, but was all alone and 
would have offered a splendid chance had one been 
up there. If you can catch a Boche like this you have 
all the time you want to manoeuvre, can attack with- 
out fear of interference by other machines, and if you 
miss him the first time can go after him again. Such 
opportunities were very rare in our old sector, but in 
the new, from what I hear, they are much more fre- 
quent, and even on the lines single Huns or small 
groups are much oftener met with. These photo- 
graphic and daylight bombing machines which pene- 
trate far behind the lines, rely largely on their great 
height for protection. The one we saw the other day 
* At Chaudun, about six miles south of Soissons. 



136 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

had two French machines after him, and we watched 
them try to get him, but he was evidently too far 
above them and escaped without their doing more 
than worry him a little. Such Huns are usually be- 
tween 16,000 and 'JO, 000 feet, generally nearer the latter 
figure. Down low, a thousand feet is for a good 
machine only a, matter of perhaps a minute, but very 
high where the air is thin it is an entirely different 
proposition, and (lie lime (hat it takes you to climb 
a thousand feet or two is often just (he time the Hun 
needs in order to escape. Obviously the thing to do 
is to be there when they come along, and if possible be 
over them. 

As I have told you before, aviation de chasse resem- 
bles in many respects other kinds of hunting; for in- 
stance, the pursuit of the festive duck. I have noticed 
that successful Hun hunters often owe their success 
to the same qualities which go to make a successful 
duck hunter, that is, patience and knowing where the 
birds use, so to speak. I know that many of the best 
chances I have had I have gotten at the same time of 
day, (lie same altitude and approximately the same 
locality; chances at machines which I had noticed 
died to do a certain kind of work, such as taking pic- 
tures when the light was most favorable. I went and 
laid tor them, and wish I could have the same chances 
over again, for I think I could bring down some of 
them which in my first attempt I hit, but let get away 
from me. Reminds me again of my beginnings of 
shooting on the river, and how well I remember the 
tine shots I used to make a bungle of. When I get to 
our uew sector I shall try to find out something of the 
habits of these birds and go up and lay for them when 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 137 

the weather is favorable. The country to which we 
have moved is very pretty, with woods, and streams, 
and rolling hills, and a seeming possibility of many 
interesting things to be discovered on walks through 
the country when the weather is unfavorable for fly- 
ing. When I arrived, it was all very picturesque in 
a mantle of snow, with every tree and bush a beautiful 
bit of lace-work, each separate twig outlined by the 
soft snow and frost with which it was covered. 

Father in his letter wonders if it is very cold high 
in the air at this time of year. It is bitter, and you 
notice the difference between now and summer time, 
although it is not nearly so pronounced as on the 
ground. Any water jumping out of your radiator, for 
instance, freezes at once, although it will also do this 
in summer very high up. I have never suffered from 
cold, however, as my rig is very good and entirely 
covers my face. The Spad, which I have always flown 
on the front, is probably as warm as any machine, par- 
ticularly the new model, which is so arranged as to 
give you the benefit of much of the heat from the 
motor. 

Paris. Jan. 7th, 1918. 

As you know from my letters, the work that I have 
been able to do in the past six weeks has amounted to 
almost nothing, which makes me particularly sick when 
I think that I might in that time have gone home 
and been back again. I am now in Paris, having come 
down to see about the transfer to the American Army, 
and when I went to Headquarters I found that my 
release from the French service had gone through, and 
my commission in the American was ready and all I 
need do to become a U. S. officer is to take the oath. 



138 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

The Colonel who will be my chief was, he said, just 
on the point of sending for me, and wanted me to leave 
my escadrille at once, but I succeeded in persuading 
them not to make me do this, as I shall explain. After 
a man has been at the front for three or four months 
I think he gets in a position where he can in perhaps a 
month's time, granting the same opportunities to fly, 
learn as much as he did in all his previous work. The 
reason for this is that his work at first is so much lim- 
ited by his inexperience. He should not begin too 
fast, and although the opportunities are there just the 
same, they are not there for him. That is to say, his 
lack of skill prevents his taking full advantage of the 
opportunities in the way he can after he has passed 
his preliminary stage at the front. Personally I feel 
confident that if I could only have the fights over 
again that I have already had I should certainly, with 
the advantage of my new machine and greater ex- 
perience be able to bag at least two or three Huns 
instead of only one. And it was these chances that I 
had been hoping to get in the past six weeks, so it is 
mighty disappointing to have had them go by with so 
little accomplished. I am, therefore, very glad to 
have been able to arrange to return to my French 
squadron and stay there until there is actually some- 
thing definite for me to do in the American service. 

I got five hundred francs prize money to-day from 
the Franco-American Flying Corps for my first Hun. 
It seems rather poor sport getting money for killing 
people — too much like shooting for the market. It is, 
however, just a special sort of pay when you come 
down to it. 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 139 

Paeis, January 16, 1918. 
You will probably be surprised when you receive 
my letter of last week on top of the cable which I sent 
you a few days later. I tried to do as I wrote in that 
letter to Father I intended doing, but things rather 
broke against me. The next day I flew back to my 
escadrille at the front only to find that during my 
absence Captain Deullin had received an order from 
headquarters that I was to be sent with several others 
to the Lafayette Escadrille. This because of my 
release from the French service and impending signing 
up with the U. S. As I told you in my last letter, 
however, this order had been changed, and instead of 
going to the Lafayette I am to do instruction work 
for several months. When the Captain received the 
order he thought I could not fly with the escadrille 
any longer, so being short of machines he promptly 
assigned my new one to another pilot, who took it out 
and broke it in landing. When I arrived and found 
out about this, to say that I was sore would be putting 
it mildly. It had taken me over a month to get that 
machine all regulated to suit myself and the end of it 
all made the loss of time seem more discouraging than 
ever. The Captain was, however, not to blame, and 
as it turned out was reasonable in supposing as he did. 
He was very nice and offered to give me back my 
machine as soon as repaired (it was not badly broken) 
or to get me a new one at once. The Commander of 
the Group, however, called up headquarters and they 
said they had no provision for allowing Americans who 
had been released from the French service to remain 
in the Group, but that they must either stay for the 
duration of the War or go to the American Escadrille 



140 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

as ordered. This, of course, settled it, and I returned 
to Paris the next day with all my things and have been 
here ever since. 

Last Thursday I took the oath to support the Con- 
stitution, etc., etc., and since then have been awaiting 
my orders to report for duty. They should come any 
day now and in the meantime I have been doing some 
shopping, laying in new uniforms, etc. Am again 
staying at the Continental, have a nice comfortable 
room and have been putting in my time translating 
some notes written by Captain Deullin on " Aviation 
de Chasse." He gave me permission to do this and to 
add something of my own, and I am going to show the 
result to the U. S. officers in charge of the training of 
American pilots. I think something of the sort might 
be useful for the men learning to fly; I know from my 
own experience what a vague idea we used to have of 
the actual conditions at the front which we were en- 
deavoring to prepare ourselves to meet, and I think a 
student can learn more in his period of training, and go 
about it more intelligently, if he knows as nearly as 
possible what he is getting ready for. 

I am in many ways very sorry to leave the French 
service. In December I was promoted to the rank of 
sergeant and held that rank at the time of transferring 
to the U. S. Army in which I have been made a cap- 
tain, but rank is not of great importance, and one 
naturally does not like to leave an organization in 
which one has been well treated,when it has still so much 
work ahead of it for which every man is needed. Un- 
doubtedly the immediate opportunities for flying on 
the front would have been greater, had I remained 
with the French, but I think it is the feeling of most 



ESCADRILLE N. 73 141 

Americans who have seen service on the front, that 
they should transfer to the American Air Service, which 
is of course badly in need of men with experience in 
flying under war conditions. 

I have enjoyed my work with the French very much 
and I admire them immensely as must any one who 
knows them. The more one sees of this war the more 
impressed one becomes with what France has done 
and how much the rest of the world owes to her. From 
the French I have always received the greatest kindness 
and consideration, and after nine months in their army 
my great regret is that I did not wake up a year or two 
sooner, as I should have, and enlist long before I did. 

I have been very fortunate in my squadron com- 
mander, Captain Deullin, a thorough gentleman and 
a splendid fighter, to whom I owe a great deal of what 
I have learned about air fighting. 

Paris, January 31, 1918. 
I am still in Paris (almost a month now) waiting 
for final orders. It seems a great waste of time, and 
when it comes to delays the French Army certainly 
has nothing on the American. I am hoping to be 
definitely settled within a week, however, and when 
I am, will write you fully about it. The work which I 
was originally called in to do seems to have been so 
split up that it practically no longer exists as one job. 
Am doing everything I can to hurry things up as I 
am very sick of Paris and anxious to get started again. 
Are you so sure of what you say about how much 
America has done by way of preparation for the coming 
fight? A letter from Uncle J would seem to indi- 
cate the contrary and what I have seen over here is to 



142 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

the same effect. The preparation in aviation in which 
we are expected to do so much is certainly disappoint- 
ing. The difficulties encountered were of course to be 
expected, having in view the fact that America has 
never herself produced a single machine of any type 
which could be used on the front. It has, I think, 
been a great mistake to feed up to the public all the 
wild tales one sees in the papers about what the U. S. 
will do in the air this spring. Most of this rot is writ- 
ten by reporters who get their information second- 
hand and don't know what they are talking about. 
I fear the reality is going to be a great disappointment 
to the public and will cause a bit of a howl. Even the 
statements from men in the aviation at home who 
should know better, show in many cases the most pro- 
found ignorance of conditions and fundamentals. The 
short article from the N. Y. Times which you enclosed 
in your last letter and which is entitled " Aviation has 
lost its romance" is just such another exhibition of 
ignorance. The writer has taken certain facts which 
he has seen in the papers and from them has proceeded 
to draw entirely erroneous conclusions, i. e., because 
he hears that planes are now flying more in groups 
rather than singly as in the early days, he concludes 
that air fighting has lost its individuality and become 
like fighting on the ground. As you say, our work 
does not sound much like what the article describes. 
It is true that there is more team work, so to speak, 
than formerly, but when the final fight comes it will 
never cease to be very much of an individual matter. 
The great speed of machines prohibits anything else. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 

(103d AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F.) 




Insignia of Escadrille Lafayette 
(103d Aero Squadron, A. E. P.) 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE, 

La Noblette,* Feb. 18, 1918. 

Have already written you all about the various com- 
plications in Paris which finally ended in my coming 
out here to the Escadrille Lafayette, so shall say no 
more about them. We have been having the most 
remarkable weather for this time of year, gorgeously 
clear days with an almost cloudless sky. Until the 
last three or four days it has been quite warm, but 
now it is clear and cold. When I think of all the rain 
and fog we had during October and November in 
Flanders it seems a shame things could not have been 
more seasonably arranged. 

I have not got a machine of my own as yet, but yes- 
terday I borrowed one from another pilot and flew 
around and got a good look at the country. f It is a 
great relief after the dreary wastes of Flanders, for it 
is rolling, with forests and patches of woods scattered 
about among very large fields, much like the sector 
we were in before I left the front in January. In fact, 
we are only a few miles from that other sector, and the 
country is even better for aviation, for should any- 
thing go wrong with your motor you can find a place to 

land almost anywhere. Yesterday M and I took 

a walk through the woods, mostly of pine, and I am 
going to do considerable more exploring before long. 
Flanders looks well enough from the air for all coun- 
tries look flat when you are above them, but when it 

* About eight miles north of Chalons-sur-Marne. 
f The Champagne sector, between Reims and the Argonne Forest. 
145 



140 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

comes to living there, the sameness and lack of hills 
or woods of any size become very tiresome. As for the 
Boches hereabouts, from what little I have seen they 
seem here also to have a habit of coming far into our 
lines to take pictures on clear days, so I am hoping that 
if I can get a good machine that will go really high, a 
little patient waiting may give me a crack at some of 
them. Those high boys well in your own lines and all 
by themselves offer a great chance once you can get up 
to them, but there lies the difficulty. Also it is not 
much fun waiting around at 20,000 feet this time of 
year. Yesterday I flew along behind the lines just in 
front of the sausage balloons, and as the day was clear 
got a very good look at things. To-morrow I think I 
shall try to borrow a machine again and have another 
quiet look, for I am a great believer in knowing your 
country well before you start much scrapping. It is 
a great help to be always able to tell at a glance just 
where you are. 

La Noblette, Feb. 19th, 1918. 

Borrowed a machine again to-day and went out with 

H and another fellow for a look at the lines. It 

was another gorgeous winter day and one could see 
for miles behind the German lines. The lines them- 
selves are very clearly marked by a broad belt of 
brown, pock-marked earth, from which the shells have 
blown everything, backed on both sides by the second 
and third-line trenches which show up very white and 
distinct in the light-colored soil. Quite different from 
Flanders, where the marshy ground and dark soil 
make the trenches practically invisible unless you are 
very low and where the first lines are conspicuous by 
a complete absence of any trenches at all. In that 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 147 

quagmire, trenches are out of the question in a heavily 
shelled region, and the men just man the shell holes, 
most of which are half full of water. Here the condi- 
tion of the ground is better, and I think I got a fairly 

good idea of the country to-day. Major T , who 

now commands the Lafayette squadron, has given me 
his machine for the time being, so I hope to get out 
soon again. 

I am sorry to say that yesterday morning the Huns 

got a friend of mine named L who was in a French 

squadron which is stationed on this field. I used to 

know L at Avord and had seen quite a little of 

him recently as we had taken several walks together. 
Same old story of getting off by himself and not watch- 
ing the rear carefully enough. He was on the other 
side of the lines and three Boches surprised him from 
the rear and evidently badly wounded him. He man- 
aged to keep his machine under control, however, and 
got several kilometers within our lines, but when he 
was still 500 metres from the ground it was evidently 
too much for him and he plunged head first the rest of 
the way. We buried him this afternoon in a little 
French military cemetery near here. The whole La- 
fayette squadron went, and there was a guard of honor 

of both American and French soldiers. L was a 

plain fellow but a good one just the same, who worked 
hard and fearlessly did his level best, and I am very 
sorry he had to go. I think I shall get a couple of 
flags for his grave, as I did for Oliver, if they are not 
already there. 

Later on this afternoon I took a long walk by myself, 
and it certainly is a relief to get some air and exercise 
in the country again, after the weeks in Paris. Shall 



lis THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

write you more of the country and the people when T 
have had bime to explore further. Must stop now, as 

M wants to go to Bleep. Certainly hope I shall 

hear from you before long. 

ll, pital \r Mmi.i.v, March 12, litis. 

I have been laid up in this hospital for the past two 

weeks bul regret dial 1 cannot write you any hero (?) 

story about, the cause of my being here. It was not. a 

Boehe bullet that laid me low, no such luck, nothing 

but a good old-fashioned case of the mumps. Rather 

thought that 1 had passed the age of such childish dis- 
eases, but it seems not, lor 1 have had as pretty a ease 
as you ever laid eyes on and a face shaped like a full 
moon. It is nearly over now, though, and I should bo 
back at the squadron within a week. 

You refer iu one of your recent letters to what I 
said about the English being so decent. I suppose 
you have heard tales o( how they force the brunt of 
the fighting on their Colonial Troops ami that they 
have not taken over as much of the line as they should 
have. Such stories are lies, pure and simple, and gen- 
erally, 1 think, of German manufacture, to stir up 
trouble. No troops tight harder than the English 
home troops, and if there was any comparison to be 
made, it would be that they do rather more than their 
share. As for England's effort in the war in general, 
all one need do is to consider the magnitude of her 
operations in Egypt, and Mesopotamia, Palestine, and 
S. Africa all in addition to her enormous part on the 
western front ami to the work o( her Navy. We may 
sometimes not admire her methods, because we think 
they are not always the best calculated to produce 



ESCADRILLK LAFAYETTE 149 

results, but no one can question that she has and is 
doing her best, and the nerve and spirit of the English 
fighting man is above criticism. 

Do not pin too mueh faith on the reports you see of 
internal troubles in Germany. To me I hey seem bo 
mean little or nothing, and I | ■ loiild not he at all sur- 
prised if they were purposely put out by the German 
Government. The .Allies are entirely too fond of tak- 
ing comfort from such reports and thinking that all 
they have to do is to hang on and wait for the end. 
This is just what Germany wants them to do that is, 
take it easy while she makes use of the time to get 
ready and hit another blow. When one considers how 
completely the ( iovernmenf controls the < Ierman Press, 

it seems foolish to believe that anything emanates from 
Germany which is not meant to. With the Russian 
muddle 1 think the end never looked further away. 

P. S. — Have been reading this epistle over and 
what 1 said about (he English reminds me that we can 
hardly criticize them on matters of management after 
what I have seen of our own forces over here, and after 
all the talk we heard about how strong the Americans 
would be on this score! Have seen some interesting 
and also some disheartening things, since 1 entered the 
U. S. A., but being an officer I suppose I should say 
nothing. 

La Noblbtid, March 19, L918. 

Here I am back at the squadron again and very 

glad to be here and out of the hospital, as 1 had no 
fun there at all, and was very much fed up wilh the 
place. 

R had a narrow escape here (he other day. I 

have written to you before about him and he is in my 



160 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

estimation the besl man in this outfit, the kind of an 
Amerioan of whom we may be proud. There is none 
braver than he, and as I recounted to you in one of 
my letters lasl summer, his bravery very nearly cost 
him his life when he first went to the front as a flyer. I 
think he wont a bit too strong at first but has been 
taking better care of himself lately, that is, until a few 
days ago, when he must have had a brainstorm. That 

he is here to-day io tell the tale is only due to his own 

skill and more particularly to the Goddess y^ Good 

Fortune. It was on for a patrol, and when he 

started noticed that for somo reason ho could not get 
his machine off the ground within the usual distance. 
He had to .shut off his motor and stop in order to avoid 
running into the woods at the end of the field. In- 
stead of at once coming back to the hangar and exam- 
ining his machine to see what was wrong, what does 

ho k\o hut turn around on the ground and roll io the 

extreme end of the field where he could get the longest 

possible run. He then started oil again and this time 
managed to get up and went on out to the lines with 
the patrol. After they had been out for a while the 
leader saw a dear sky and an opportunity of making a 
dash some four miles into the German lines and attack- 
ing a captive observation balloon. 'This he did ami 

R — attacked in his turn, diving almost vertically 

on the balloon and shooting as he came. When ho 

tried io pull up. however, he found that his elevating 
controls would not work and his machine consequently 
kept on diving for the ground a thousand meters or 

so below. He tried again to ilatten out. putting on 
his motor and jerking on his controls as he did so. 

This time he managed to get the nose of his machine 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 151 

up, flew back to our lines and oame in with the patrol 
after a full flight- of some two hours. When lie went 
to level off in Landing, his controls again would not 
function properly, and be almost smashed tip on (lie 
field, but just managed to get on the ground without 
breaking anything. During the entire Sight he Hew 
wild his controls out of their usual position in order 
to keep his plane in flying position. Upon examina- 
tion of the machine to And out what was wrong, it 
turned out that the rivets which fasten the elevating 

planes to the Controls had sheared off so that the only 

thing that was holding them was that the joint was a 
little stiff and gummed with paint. As it was, the 
joint slipped about and threw the controls out of posi- 
tion. It would he hardly possible to have a closer 
shave than this and to go Up in the first place when 
oii(! knows that the controls are not functioning prop- 
erly is pure madness. I told R, so, for if any oik; 

has to be killed, R would he about tin; last man 

that I would want to see go. They did not get the 
balloon and when I asked R if he was tired of life; 

he laughed and said "No, but I made the I'.oches pull 
their old balloon down anyhow." We have now cor- 
rected and reinforced the construction of the tails of 

the machines, so that the; same thing cannot occur 
again. 

You asked in one of your letters about Stewart 
Walcott, who was killed in December. I knew him at 
Avoid and Ik; was an extremely nice fellow, oik; of the 

best of (he Americans in the Franco-American Flying 

Corps. Unfortunately, it is among this class that the 

gfeat majority of the losses have occurred. The an- 
swer is simple — they do their best and fight. 



L52 THE WA? OF THE EAGLE 

Speaking of close calls, such as that of B 's, T 

think many pilots do not bake them enough to heart 
It is all very well not to brood over such things ami 

lot thorn got on your norvos but at tho sanio titno there 
is no reason Why One should not learn aiul profit by 
them. Many nion when they have a narrow osoapo 

of one kind or another seem to quickly forget it just 
because they '"got away with it" without coming to 
grief. It seems to mo that it is a good idea to lot such 
an experience sink in ami try to always thereafter take 
every possible precaution against its happening again. 
One cannot koop too close an eye on machines no mat- 
tor how good they are supposed to bo or how much 
confidence one may have in tho skill and care oi one's 
mechanics. I know 1 have always tried to personally 
examine any machine I have Sown, to tho extent of 
sometimes almost making tho mechanics in charge tool 

that I did not trust thorn. If they aro any good, how- 
ox or, they understand when you explain your reasons 
to thorn and toll thorn that you would always do tho 

same thing, for your own personal satisfaction, even 

if you know that a do/on oi tho host mechanics in tho 

land had just examined every bolt in tho machine. 

People talk of tho progress that has boon made in 
aviation and that will bo made, and say that tho day 
is coming when it will bo as safe as automobiling. 

They don't know what thoy aro talking about and tho 

two cannot bo compared. In an automobile if a wheel 
comes off or tho steering gear breaks you perhaps roll 

in tho ditch and that is all. provided you were not 
racing. In tho air. if you loso a wing or your controls 
break, you aro finished, at least until someone invents 

a sky hook or a moans of got ting out on a oloud and 



I CADRILLE LAFAYBT1 E L53 

making repair . fa the case of broken control , a 
skilful pilot can often save oil neck, provided be bae 
some of them left, but this depend* largely on the 
Inherent stability ol the type of plane vrhicb be hap- 
penf to be flying. 

obuotb, March 27th, 1918. 

Save had several Sights on the lines since la t writ- 
ing, but <-vcvy time I go out things seem to tx 
quiet and I have not had a shot at a Boche yet. I led 
a patrol this morning and saw one two seater fooling 
around low down far within his own lines. We went 
back into our lines and got in the sun in the hope flint 
he would not see ". and would come out when 
could get a crack at him. Ead no luck, however, for 
every time we got anywhere near him )><■ would beat 
it \)-.K-k Into his lines ho far that it was impossible to 
follow him with any chance of ixa 

Kesterday morning R , another fellow and my- 
self were out, and this time R was **M*"g the 
show. We fooled around for an hour or so a little 
Inside the German lines at about 8000 metres where 
the Boche "Archies" gaveu quite a lively time. Then 
some clouds came along at about 1600 metm 

R started Into Germany flying above a line of 

clouds. The third man's motor was not going properly 
so that he was afraid to risk it and went back. All the 
time the "Archies" kept plugging :iw».y as there were 
not enough cloudi to prevent their i eeing us. When we 
got about fifteen kilometres Into the German territory 

R dove down through a hole in the clouds and I 

followed close behind nun. 1 flattened out at about 
1000 metres to look for him and saw him 800 or 400 



154 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

metres behind me. Turned to go baek and join him 
but got mixed up in a low cloud which I had not 
noticed and when I came out could see no sign of him. 
Under me was a Boohe hospital with a lot of red crosses 
on it. Their "Archies" and anti-aircraft machine guns 

opened up in great shape and 1 don't mind saying that 
1 felt mighty lonesome all by my little self with the 
front lines so far away I could not even see them at 
that height. 

I thought R must have gone above the clouds 

again so I put on my power and climbed up but could 
see no sign of him. As my gasoline was getting low I 

came home without more delay and 11 came in a 

few minutes later. He reported that he had shot at a 
town and a small railway train, but I did not see him, 
as I was pretty busy watching the air for Hun ma- 
chines. There seemed to be none out, however, for 
which T was rather glad, as should live or six o( them 
get after yon when in that position, they could give 
yon a mighty poor time before you could get back to 
your own lines. 

When we got back I told R I thought he used 

very poor judgment, for I cannot see the use of taking 
chances when there is nothing to be gained by it. 
What is the use of patrolling just inside the German 
lines where their "Archies" continually shoot you up 
and the black shell bursts give away your position and 
dest roy practically all chance of springing a surprise. It 
seems to me much better to stay a little in your own 
lines or make short excursions into Hnnland and out 
again, so that you are not much shot at and can at the 
same time see any German machines which it would be 
possible to attack. My theory is that you should allow 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 155 

a Bochc to come as far as possible into your own lines 
before attacking, for then you have twice the chance 
of success. If he won't come, that is a different matter 
and you can go after him, but give him a chance to 
come. 

Also at the time of an offensive, it is often necessary 
to adopt different tactics and to push the air fighting 
to far within the enemy lines, both for the better pro- 
tection of our own two-seater machines, which at such 
a time are themselves penetrating further than usual 
into Hunland, as well as for the moral effect on our 
own forces and those of the Huns. Again, I can see no 
use in going miles into German territory in a quiet 
sector (so far as activity on the ground is concerned) 
just to shoot at ground targets from a height of 1500 
metres where you have not one chance in a thousand 
of killing anything and a good chance of being brought 
down yourself. You don't prove anything and it does 
not seem to me to be the best way to win the war. 
At the time of an attack, when the roads behind the 
lines are full of troops, etc., which offer a good target, 
then is the time to go in and shoot them up, provided 
you do it at 100 or 200 metres height where you can 
really hit something. 

The "Archies" do not often bring a plane down when 
one considers the number of machines fired at every 
day and the enormous expenditure of ammunition, 
but there is no use in letting them shoot at you just 
for the fun of it, particularly in this sector, where the 
German batteries are more accurate than any I have 
yet seen. They come too darn close for comfort. A 

few days ago R got a piece of a shell through a 

wing and another man got one in his tail. Yesterday, 



156 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

some one on the ground put a bullet through my bail, 

but thai is, of course, nuu'h too far from me to be 
dangerous. Another thing about low flying in enemy 
territory is that all one needs is to have the motor 
stop or get a bullet in it and the best one eau expect 
is to laud and be taken prisoner. The English used 
to do a lot of this sort of thing and lost a great many 
men without accomplishing enough to make it worth 
while. They sent and still send their men out on 
a great many "strafing" expeditions. "Strafing" is 
aviation slang for flying low and attacking enemy 
troops with bombs and machine-gun fire. At the time 
o( an attack when the roads are full of troops and 
supply trains which offer good targets, strafing has a 
great effect and is undoubtedly of the highest impor- 
tance, lis greatest effect is upon the morale of the 
troops attacked, for nothing gets on an infantryman's 
nerves like being shot up from the air before he even 
reaches the advanced positions. He feels that he has 
little or no protection against this sort of thing and 
that the only thing he can do about it is to hide. He 
is often afraid to shoot at a plane, for fear of giving 
away his own position, ami thinks that if he makes a 
move the airman will spot him. As a matter o( fact 
the man in the air in his swiftly moving plane cannot 
see nearly as much as the man on the ground thinks 
lie can. Things [lash by so quickly that small details 
often pass unobserved. The infantryman's greatest 
protection against the low-flying machine lies in his 
rifle ami machine guns and he does not use them 
nearly as much as he should. When he does shoot 
he is discouraged because his tire seldom seems to 
have much effect, forgetting that the vital parts of the 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 157 

machine which he must hit, in order to bring it down 
at once, are very .small. To do thin he must knock the 
pilot out, set the plane on fire or damage the motor bo 
seriously as to cause it to stop. Be may kill the 

observer, wound tlie pilot, or hit the motor' or the plane, 
so as to ruin it for further service, but still the pilot 
may be able to get back to his own lines, and the man 
who shot him will think that he missed entirely. 

In addition to this, fire from the ground gets on a 
pilot's nerves just as much as his shooting upsets the 
man on the ground. Losses to the Air Service; when 
engaged in ground strafing are very heavy and almost 
all pilots will agree that they would rather do any 
other kind of work. A pilot's skill and experience are 
no protection to him against fire from the ground, and 
he feels about as helpless as do the troops he is straf- 
ing. He must also be constantly on his guard against 
attack from the air, and no matter how carefully he 
may watch, he will get into many difficult situations 
because his work takes him far into the enemy lines 
and low to the ground, so that Hun machines which 
may be above him can easily overtake him and come 
down on his back, even though he may have noticed 
them as soon as they came in sight. It is for these 
reasons that it has always seemed to me that strafing 
should be confined, as it is in the French service, to 
the period of an offensive, for in a quiet sector the 
dangers to the aeroplane are just as great, while ground 
targets being few an/1 far between, there is little that 
the aviator can accomplish either by actual material 
destruction or by affecting the morale of troops. 

If I ever get a squadron of my own, I know that 
there are some things they will not do. I prefer to 



158 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

take my chances flirting with a Hun where I have as 
good a chance as he has. Am glad to Bay that I am 
in command of one o( the "flights" of this escadrille 
so that 1 generally load the patrols that 1 am on and 
can take them where 1 please. 

Since 1 started on the present instalment of this 
letter, R has come in from a voluntary patrol 

with Major T and another fellow. They attacked 

a bunch of five Hun single-seaters and three two-seaters. 

R shot down two o( the single-seaters and they are 

both already officially confirmed. He thinks he hit an- 
other one pretty hard but there IS as yet no news of 
this third Boche. Pretty good Work at that. I per- 
sonally get more discouraged every day. Have just, 
been out for the second time to-day and did not see a 
feather. Worse than anything else, 1 ran see from the 
way my motor is acting that it is not going to last more 
than about one more flight if I can manage to nurse 
it through that. Anil it is a brand-new motor ami 
machine with only about five hours of flight. It seems 
to me that every time 1 get a machine something like 
this goes wrong and it is very disheartening after you 
have worked several days to get the guns and every- 
thing else properly regulated. When I have gotten 
out on the lines there has not been a sign of a Hun, 
and then the very next patrol runs into a bunch of 

them. R seems to attract the Huns, for he has 

had any number o( tights except when 1 have been 
with him, and then we have not seen a thing. Their 
tight this morning lasted almost half an hour in all. 
with intervals. They attacked the same bunch of 
Heches three or four times until their ammunition 
was all gone or guns jammed. R got one and 



I. CADEILLB LAFAYET] E 159 

then speared the oilier seven minutes later. Such a 
fight is, of course, not continuous, the machines attack- 
ing, then flying off, manoeuvring for position and going 
at it again* 

One of my chief troubles with my m«/»hii^f 

been that I have been trying to use a new type which 
i much superior to the old when it runs, being fa 
and better in every way. [t has not proved a 
cess, however, being continually out of order or the 
motor breaking down* I am through with it now, 
however, and am going back to the old type of ma- 
chine that I had when I first went to (he front. Nearly 
all the men here have them and they ^o v<-sy well, 
although I can fly rings around them with my machine; 
when it will go. Have decided, however, that I would 
rather fly with the old type than sit on the ground 
and curse at thenew. 

Ll NOBIBTTB, April 9, 1918. 

My letter this week must he brief, as wo are moving 
to-morrow and it is late, with much packing -till to ho 
done. Of course, J cannot toll you where wo are 

going, hut it looks as though wo were ^oifij^ to get in 

the big fight after all. Naturally, wo are delighted, 
for it ''in that 'iii. greatest of all battles may very 
likely make or break the war an'J being so near, it 
woul'l be a pity to have had no part in it. It has 
emed a waste of energy and material to sail around 
in what i. generally a Bunless sky when there i 
much to he done elsewhere. If the big battles od the 
Bommeand south of if to the Aisne turn out as we hope, 

I think there will still be a weary lot of war to follow, 

hut if should nevertheless prove the turning point. 



160 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Fismes,* April 13, 1918. 
Yesterday was another of the most beautiful days 
imaginable and I have never seen the visibility better. 
From 15,000 feet you could see almost to the ends of 
the earth it seemed, and a large part of the great bat- 
tlefield on which the present terrific struggle is going 
on, was spread out before us. I can tell you this 
without saying anything I should not, for this greatest 
of all battles extends over such a stretch of country 
that the mere fact that one is in it does not give any 
definite indication of where one really is. Yesterday we 
had not as yet had any definite duties assigned to us, 
so we got up a voluntary expedition in the morning and 
went out to see what there was to be seen. I was lead- 
ing the show and we had not gotten to the lines when 
the white puffs of smoke from the French "Archies" 
showed me a Hun two-seater coming into our lines. He 
was very high and although we tried our best to Climb 
up to him he saw us and got back to his lines before 
we could catch him. Just as we got to the lines I 
spotted another two-seater trying the same trick and 
again tried to get up to him with no better results, 
although we got a good deal closer to this fellow, not, 
however, within even long range. As I have explained 
to you before, climbing around 15,000 feet where the 
air is thin is an entirely different part of speech from 
climbing when near the ground. It takes considerable 
time and if the Hun has a couple of thousand feet 
advantage of you, he must be a long way in your lines 
if you are going to catch him before he gets home. 
Yesterday we were out of luck, as we were just getting 
our height at the time and were still thousands of feet 
below the Huns. 

* In the Chemin des Dames sector, between Reims and Soissons. 




/. ■z 



* i 



BSCADBILLE LAFAYET] E 101 

After reaching the linei we flew about for mora than 
an hour without seeing any Boche machine*, [n the 
beautiful clear air, however, we did get a most won- 
derful view of the country. Not far away, one of the 
largest and most beautiful cities of Prance 4 was under 
bombardment and was burning in a dozen places. 
'J here are no civilians left In this town now, J am glad 
to say, but the waste and destruction is sickening. 

Finally I caught sight of two German machines fly- 
ing far within their own lines and perhaps a thousand 
metres below us. They were too far in to offer any 
sort of a chance, so we went back a little into our own 
I and flew about so that the Hun:-, had the sun in 
their eye:-:. For at least ten minutes we waited and 

finally were rewarded by Seeing there start out for the 

lines, evidently thinking they had a clear coast. There 

had been four of us to begin with, but one man had 

lost the formation in some elouds and another had 
had to go in on account of motor trouble. As we 
Started after the Boches, it was impossible to always 
keep in the sun, and they caught eight of us and 
started back into their lines. In turning, the two 
Suns drew up close beside each other in perfect de- 
fensive position, so that it was Impossible to attack 

either without ^ivinf/; the observer of the other an 

excellent .hot. Seeing thi i I manoeuvred around them 
for a second in the hope of getting them in a more 
favorable position. They did exactly what I wanted 

them to and one fell in behind the- other SO that it was 
possible to attack him as though hi.-, comrade were not 
there. 

All this time I had thought that they were two- 
seater machines as in fact they were, but as I dove 

* RfciujH. 



L62 THE WA? OF THE EAGLE 

down to get under the tail of the rear Hun I noticed 

thai he only had one set of struts between the wings 
on each Bide oi the fuselage. Now 1 had never seen 
or ln\ud of a Hun two-seater which did not have at 
least two Bets oi stmts, while most single-seaters only 
have one. 1 therefore jumped to the conclusion that 
these machines were single-seaters after all, even though 
they were larger than the ordinary, for there is a new 
German single-seater which 1 have never seen, but which 
is considerably bigger than the older typo usually met 
with. The machine also seemed a bit small for a two- 
seater. Hence 1 wont after (his follow as I would a 
single-seater, diving on his hack instead of going under 
his tail. Have not had a fight for so long until this 
one (not a shot since December 5th, when 1 got my 
first) that 1 am afraid l started shooting too soon. 
However, I think I must have had the groat good luck 
to hit the pilot with one oi my first shots, for tho Hun 
just kept living along in a perfectly straight line with- 
out manoeuvring at all, giving one of the easiest tar- 
gets imaginable. I could Bee my bullets hitting the 
machine and going all around the pilot's seat, and no 
man in his senses would By straight ahead with this 
going on, Finally, got directly behind him, so that 
my shots raked the machine from end to end, and let 
him have at least a hundred oi them. When within 
about forty yards, I suddenly saw the machine gunner 

let go oi his gun, throw up his arms ami Bop down out 

oi sight in tho body of tho machine, and so realised 

that it was a two-soator after all. 

About that time a lot oi white smoke started to 
come out oi tho Hun's motor, evidently caused by tho 
bullets hitting it, for tho machine did not catch tiro. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE L63 

Then he began to climb until he was at such a steep 
angle that the motor could not pull the machine up 
any further and it- seemed to hang almost stationary 
for a f(;w second . You have seen a duci when it is 
mortally shot climb straight up for a little, flutter a 
second or so and then fold its wings and fall. This 
Boche reminded me for all die world of such a bird. 
He finally slipped sideways on one wing and then 
plunged vertically on his nose:, leaving a long trail of 
white smoke behind him. I circled above and watched 
him fall and have never seen a machine go down so 
fast before. He seemed to cover the nine thousand 
feet to the ground in almost no time at all. I watched 
him until he went head first into the ground and could 
distinctly see the machine all the time it was falling, 
but when it struck it just seemed to melt out of sight 
and I could see no trace of it on the ground. When a 
plane falls in this way the motor generally K'^'S out 
of sight in the ground and the body is of course smashed 
to atoms, so I suppose the wreckage was too .small to 
Bee from my height. 

All the time the second Boche had been hiking for 
home as fast as he could go and had 1 been quick I 
should have had a good shot at him also, for he was 
only a couple of hundred yards away and directly in 
front of me. When the first one turned out to he a 
two-seater, however, it took me so much by surprise and 
he was so long about making up his mind to fall that 
by the time I woke up the other fellow was gone. 
Also, not knowing the sector, I thought we were a 
considerable distance in the German lines, when as a 
matter of fact we were just over them, and the Boche 
fell in No Man's Land. There was no trouble at all 



164 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

about the official confirmation, for almost as soon as 
we had landed on our own field, confirmation came in 
from several sausage balloons, the infantry, artillery, 
and from a couple of observers in aeroplanes who had 
seen the Boche fall. A report also came in that a lot 
of Huns ran out of their trenches and gathered around 
the wreck of their machine on the ground, whereupon 
the French 75's amused themselves by dumping some 
shells in their midst. Rather rubbing it in, don't you 
think? I think I had a good deal of luck with this 
fellow. My machine gun ran like a charm and never 
even hesitated. 

Then, too, this was a rube way to go after a two- 
seater, for although it gives you a splendid shot, the 
machine gunner has an even better one. As soon as 
you run into one who is a good shot you are going to 
have trouble, and the man who uses such tactics 
against two-seaters wrll not generally last long. In 
this case I think the machine gunner must have been 
hit by one of my first shots, because he did not fire at 
all so far as I could see. I don't think I shall make 
this mistake again, however. The machine was evi- 
dently a new type of two-seater* which I had not 
heard of. It is rather small, the pilot and the ma- 
chine gunner sit very close together, and the plane is 
intended as a sort of combination pursuit and observa- 
tion machine. 

One of the other men in the squadron reported that 
he shot down a single-seater in flames half an hour after 
I got the two-seater, but we have as yet been able to get 
no confirmation. If he gets this one it will make four 
for him in a month, three of them in flames. Was 

♦AHalberstadt. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 165 

rather surprised that mine did not catch fire, for I 
don't think I shall ever hit a machine harder than this 
one, due to the very easy shot he gave me. I saw not 
just a few bullets go into him but a regular stream of 
them, and I don't see how I could have missed his gas 
tank. There is a great advantage in setting a machine 
on fire, for there is then no possible doubt, and it can 
be seen to fall for miles, which makes confirmation 
much easier. 

Went out on another voluntary patrol in the after- 
noon and tried to get a shot at another two-seater, but 
in attempting to surprise him made rather a mess of 
it, so that I never even got a shot. Then a little while 
later we spotted three single-seaters flying far within 
their lines, and I tried the same tactics of waiting in 
the sun for them to come out. Waited ten minutes 
and they would not come so went in after them. I 
got on one fellow's tail and one of the other men 
jumped on another, but both our guns jammed after 
only half a dozen shots or so. We were far in the 
German lines on the other side of their sausage bal- 
loons, so there was nothing for it but to clear out. 

In the morning when we were after the two-seaters, 
my companion stayed over my head and protected 
the rear. He tried to get a whack at the second 
machine, but was unsuccessful. In making an attack 
it is a great comfort to know that your rear is pro- 
tected and the man who does this protection work to 
my mind deserves a great deal more credit than he 
usually gets. On coming out of the German lines 
after the machine fell, their " Archies" opened up, but 
they didn't seem to be as good as they were in our last 
sector. There they were wonderful. 



166 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Was looking over the official reports the other day 
and saw an account of a most remarkable coincidence, 
and incidentally one of the hardest bits of luck imagina- 
ble. A German machine attacked a French sausage 
balloon so that the two observers were forced to jump 
in their parachutes. They were coming down all right 
when the German machine above them was hit by an 
"Archie" and blown to pieces. A piece fell on one of 
the parachutes, breaking it, and the Frenchman fell 
and was killed. That fellow certainly had no luck at 
all. 

Fismes, 29 April, 1918. 

Rien de neuf ici. Toujour la brume et le mauvais 
temps.* Now my French has about run out so we 
will continue in the mother tongue. But "sans blag,"t 
since last writing there has been practically nothing 
but fog, mist, and rain, with the exception of one day 
when it cleared up for a few hours. Got in a flight 
then, but outside of that have not had my machine 
off the ground. Hobey Baker and another fellow and 
myself went out and had hardly reached the lines 
before we bumped into three Hun chasse machines, 
Albatross. I was leading our patrol so attacked at 
once, as we had the advantage of height. Got on one 
Hun's tail and should have had a very good shot, but 
after a few shots my gun stopped again. Was able to 
fix it in a second but then the chance was gone and I 
never got as good a shot again. I was square on the 
Boche's tail and saw several bullets miss him by inches 
but am afraid I shot when too far away. He turned 
under me and as I had fixed my gun by that time I 

* Nothing new here. Always fog and bad weather. 
fNo fooling. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 167 

dove and took another crack at him. He turned ver- 
tically on his nose, so much so he almost got on his 
back, and dove like a bullet. It was impossible to 
follow or watch him as that would have taken me 
below the other two Huns. This one is carried on the 
official reports as "probably" destroyed by me, but 
not confirmed. I do jiot think, however, that he fell 
or was seriously hit, for if he had gone down he would 
surely have been seen as we were just on the lines. 

We were flying above a sea of white clouds with 
just enough holes in them to allow one to see sufficient 
of the country below to keep one's bearings. The fight 
began at about 11,000 feet and just as I attacked the 
first Hun I looked behind and above to see Baker and 
the other man going after the other two. They had 
no luck, however, as Baker's gun jammed after about 
twenty shots and the other fellow was having trouble 
with the pressure in his gas tank, so that he was able to 
do very little. When I looked again one of the three 
Boches was trying to get at me, so I left the one that 
had dived and took a try at this second one. I got 
on his back but that was about all the good it did me 
for that fellow certainly could handle his machine. 
He started diving toward our lines and I hoped that 
I could drive him down low to the ground, even if I 
could not hit him, and once close to the ground he 
would have to stop his stunts and either land or fly in 
something like a line, which would give me a decent 
shot at him. He went into a spiral with little Willie 
doing the same just behind and above him. We went 
down several thousand feet in this way, twisting and 
turning. I got some shots at him at close range but 
only the most difficult ones. Once when he did a 



his THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

renversemenl in front of me I had to pull up to keep 
from running into him. He tried bo gel above me, 
but as the advantage of height had been with me from 
the first, this was of course easy to prevent. 

As we went down 1 glanced behind me to make sure 
of not being surprised from the rear and Could see 

nothing of my companions, but two Huns were oircling 

some oOO metres over our heads. They were SO direct ly 
above that I doubt if they saw us, and at any rate 1 
knew I could dive into the clouds if 1 got into a tight 
hole. The two above never came down, but having 
them there always worries you and distracts your 
attention by requiring too much watching of the rear. 
My Hun dove for a hole in the clouds, but in watch- 
ing the others I had gotten several hundred yards 
behind him, ami although 1 came through the same 
hole a couple of seconds later and went down under 
the clouds to 3,000 feet there was not a sign of him. 
Suppose he must have stayed in those clouds until he 
was well within his own lines. The fact that there 
were two BocheS above us when I was after this last 
one. making three in all, the original number, is what 
makes me think, among other things, that the first one 
did not go down, although of course a. fourth might 
have come along. My personal opinion, however, is 
that that first Hun is now passing these rainy days 
drinking beer ami calling the American the Boohe 
equivalent of "sale eoehon."* because the American 
gave him a thrill and perhaps necessitated the chang- 
ing of the wings on said Hun's "joli Cuckoo" by shoot- 
ing a few holes in them. 1 am sorry to have gotten so 
little result out o( these last few encounters but have 
* Dirt} pig. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE L69 

at least learned a great deal, I think, and hope to be 
able to do better next time. My experience is fight- 
ing with single-seater chasse machines has been very 
limited. If. i a the most exciting of -'ill encounters but 
offers tin: most difficult chance for a decisive victory 
and consequently requires more skill in shooting to 
bring one of them down. These Boche machines were 
very pretty, being clean and new looking, with the mark 
of one of the squadrons of Baron Von Elichtofen's 
famous group on the tail planes. The tails were 
painted in broad black and white diagonal bands, and 

one had a diamond-shaped /nark on the side- of his 

fuselage with some serf, of an "ensigne" inside*, which 

I could not make out. All my last, three fights have 
been with this outfit and I should like very much to 
get one of them, for they are excellent pilots, suppo ed 
to be the best the Germans have. However, we shall 
not see them any more for a while at least, for we are 
moving again immediately. I would like to tell you 
where, hut of course cannot. 

You want to know what we have to eat and when I 
tell you, you will see that war is not so had after .'ill, 
when it comes to eating, tor breakfast we have oat- 
meal, eggs to order with bacon, hot eakes about every 
other day, and coffee or tea. For luncl , one or two 
hors d'esuvres, BUCh as bully beef or canned salmon 

with mayonnaise, or perhaps canned asparagus. Then 

some sort of meat, veal or steak or mutton, for in- 
stance, with potatoes, and some other vegetable, a 
salad, and generally some dessert, such as canned fruit 
or a pudding. Willi this goes pretty good bread and 
butter. Finally we have a demi-tasse and always 
plenty of granulated sugar. We get stuff through the 



170 THU WAV OF THE EAGLE 

French when we want it and also through the Ameri- 
can Quartermaster; anything else we buy outside. 

Our mess costs us 150 to 175 francs a month. For 
dinner we get soup, some meat again, a couple of vege- 
tables, salad, sometimes nuts and sometimes a dessert, 
finishing up with coffee. So you see we are not to be 
pitied and you will now understand why I say that one 
of my greatest dangers is over-eating, especially when 
the weather is bad, not forgetting, o( course, the ever- 
present danger of breaking one's neck by falling out 
of bed. 

The "Challenge of the Present Crisis" arrived last 
week and 1 read it through at one sitting, as you sug- 
gested. I think it is excellent and certainly contains 
much food for thought. I cannot, however, at all 
agree with the author in his prayer to God to bless 
Germany (see p. ot-oo). You remember the picture 
1 sent you, "Ne leur pardonnez pas, nion pcre, car ils 
savent ce qu'ils font."* The same thing applies to the 
methods of the Huns in general and not simply to 
their bombing of women and children. During this 
war I shall kill personally and help to kill as many 
Huns as possible, after it I shall never speak to 
or have anything to do with one except perhaps to 
tell him what I think of him and the rest of his tribe, 
and if I ever catch one in my house or my office, I 
promise you that he will go out faster than he came 
in, if it is in my power to make him. Fosdick in his 
book quotes Walt Whitman as having said "God damn 
the Turk." I think the same prayer would be even 
more suitable in the case of the Hun. You will say 
that I am bitter. I am and I should be ashamed of 
* Father, do not forgive them, for they know what they do." 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 171 

myself if I were not. I hate the Huns but I do not 
think my feeling is such as to interfere at all with 
such ability as I may have to help defeat them. 

Leffrinckoucke,* May 7, 1918. 

Our moving is completed for the time being at least, 
so now I have a chance to drop you a line. The bad 
weather continues almost incessantly so that we have 
been doing very little flying, but when it does clear up 
there should be plenty of action, for we are again in 
that sector where Oliver and I first arrived at the 
front last July. I have had a couple of flights over 
the lines, but the mist was so heavy that there was 
not a great deal going on in the air. On the first ex- 
cursion I did have one short flirtation with a Hun two- 
seater, short because I again had trouble with my 
confounded gun. The Boche plane was a new type,f 
in appearance very much like some of the English 
machines and so marked as to carry out the decep- 
tion. I started to let him pass under me and then 
noticing the peculiar markings, started down after him 
to make sure. Immediately he dove back into his 
own lines so we waited around for him to come out 
again. This time I got dead behind and under his 
tail at about fifty yards, but my gun quit after about 
eight shots, the Hun twisted sideways and the machine 
gunner started shooting, so I ducked under his tail, 
stood on my nose and left him, with the least possible 
delay. 

You have no idea how hard it is to follow the 
shooting instructions laid down in the notes I sent you, 
that is, to hold your fire until you are at close range 

* Three miles east of Dunkirk. f Hannoveranner. 



172 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

and then to shoot with sufficient deliberation to be 
really accurate. There is the constant tendency to 
get "jumpy" and shoot too hurriedly, which one is 
continually striving to repress. As for my gun, such 
troubles are most discouraging and I have had my 
fill of them, so after this last fiasco I took it off the 
machine and put on a new one, first examining every 
part with the greatest care. Yesterday I tried it out 
on a target and it worked to perfection, firing a large 
number of shots without the slightest hitch. I hope, 
therefore, that things will go better from now on. 

My other trip on the lines was a daylight patrol at 
the time of a particularly heavy artillery bombard- 
ment. For as far as one could see the guns on both 
sides were twinkling like the lights of a city in the 
distance, while in between the black and white puffs of 
the exploding shells and the little geysers of flying mud 
and debris were practically continuous, as thick as the 
large raindrops at the beginning of a summer shower. 
Above the lines many planes, all of them ours at this 
time, with hundreds of the little black clouds around 
them made by the Hun "Archies." The lines look, of 
course, much the same as they did when I first saw 
them and wrote to you describing what a sight they 
are, only the devastated area has spread enormously. 
A green forest which I wrote you in the fall had taken 
on a very mangy appearance, has now almost entirely 
disappeared, until at present it is hard to distinguish 
from the fields, or rather what were once fields, which 
surrounded it. It is remarkable in how short a time 
a region may be transformed when it becomes the 
centre of heavy fighting. For instance, a village* 

* Locro, southwest of Ypres. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 173 

which I visited last fall and which has been the scene 
of fighting for only the past two or three weeks, is now 
nothing but a heap of bricks and plaster with scarcely 
a wall standing. Last fall there was not a shell mark 
in the town. On this particular morning a certain 
much disputed hill * was receiving a large share of 
attention from the artillery and it looked like what I 
suppose a volcano in eruption does. The whole top of 
the hill seemed to be exploding every second, and cer- 
tainly nothing could have lived upon it. In such a 
case I believe only the approaches commanding the 
hill are held. 

Not so long ago I had a chance to visit Reims and 
jumped at it. I had seen it often from the air, having 
flown over it day after day, but had never seen it 
from the ground. There are portions of the city 
which are not very badly battered in spite of the rain 
of shells to which it has been subjected almost since 
the war began. Until recently I think 1,835 was the 
record number for 24 hours, but I saw that one day 
a few weeks ago the Huns fired something over 3000 
shells into the city. That was at the time when you 
may have noticed in the papers that the city was burn- 
ing in a number of places more or less continuously 
for a week. For blocks around the cathedral, how- 
ever, the buildings are completely wrecked and lie a 
mass of broken bricks and plaster with jagged walls 
standing up from the debris. Fire has completed the 
destruction of what the shells had left. The cathedral 
itself is, I fear, beyond repair, although it is not in bad 
shape as compared with the buildings which surrounded 
it. The roof is gone and of course all the beautiful 
* Kemmel Hill, cast of Locre and south of Ypres. 



174 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

stained glass has been smashed to atoms. There are 
a number of direct hits visible on the walls and but- 
tresses and the whole has been considerably scorched 
by fire. A good deal of the intricate carving and pieces 
of statuary have been broken, but there is a great 
deal more which has not. The famous carved arches 
at the entrance (the cathedral faces away from the 
lines) with their thousands of little stone figures, have 
been protected by sand bags and seem to be almost 
intact. In fact, it was not as bad as I had feared and 
may still remain as a wonderful monument, although 
it can hardly again be used as a church. The after- 
noon we were there was very quiet with only a few 
shells falling in the distance. I took some pictures of 
the cathedral and the town about it which I shall send 
when I get a chance to have them developed. Thought 

of Mother and Uncle J and how they would have 

enjoyed being there, painful as it is to see the wreckage 
of such beautiful places. 

Think we shall probably see another big effort by 
the Huns before long and this time we shall really be 
in it. The guns have been pounding away incessantly 
for the last two or three days and their steady rumble 
is plainly audible as I write. Every now and then the 
barracks shakes and the windows rattle when a par- 
ticularly big one goes off. Our sleeping quarters here 
are, by the way, the most comfortable we have ever 
had. We are lodged in little huts made of corrugated 
sheet iron and shaped like a cylinder cut lengthwise 

in half, with the flat side on the ground. M , Hobe 

Baker, L , and I have one together and are very 

nicely installed, each with a washstand in the corner 
by his bed, electric lights, and in the centre a table 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 175 

larger than any we have at home, with books, maga- 
zines, etc., and an oil lamp 1 . Men in the aviation cer- 
tainly have a cinch while they are not flying. 

Leffrinckovcke, 13 May 1918. 

Due to our moving I had not until to-day had a let- 
ter from home for two weeks, but at last they have 
come and I have been having a fine time reading them 
for the past two hours. It is blustering and raining 

outside as usual and M and Hobe Baker have gone 

off with an Englishman to see the front-line trenches. 
They met the Englishman recently and when he came 
for them to-day he asked me if I would not like to go 
up some other time. Naturally I said yes, but this 
afternoon I was just as glad to be left to myself so 
that I could drop you a line and read my letters. 
Also, as you know, I have already had several trips 
up to the front in this section when I was here with 
the French escadrille. 

You will see by the papers that a great friend of 
Oliver's and mine is missing, poor old Jimmie Hall. 
He left this squadron about six weeks ago and went to 
one of the new American squadrons, and I had not 
seen him since he left. He was one of the very best 
men in this outfit and I am deeply sorry that he is 
gone. We know no more about what happened to 
him than what we have seen in the papers, but al- 
though he is evidently gone so far as this war is con- 
cerned, I hope that we may see him again some day. 
Jim has been in the war since 1914, first as a ma- 
chine gunner with the English, then in the French 
aviation and finally the American. He was a long time 
in the trenches with the British and you have read his 



176 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

book. He has had several hair-breadth escapes so we 
hope that his good fairy has not altogether deserted 
him and that he may have pulled through this last 
and be only a prisoner. I certainly hope so, for there 
was a real man. He had been doing very well, and 
was a most valuable man. not only for his ability as a 
pilot, but also as an officer and a loader for our own 
men. I had gotten to know Jim quite well. He was a 
true friend and certainly no braver man ever lived. 
According to the newspaper reports he was shot down 
by a new type of German machine which has unusual 
climbing ability and can shoot at another machine 
above it much better than the ordinary single-seater 
with fixed guns. The report was that Jim was diving 
on one when it suddenly pulled up under him and got 
him from below, but of course this is only a news- 
paper report on which little reliance can be placed. 

Tins new German machine is a tri-plane. It also 
has fixed guns like all other single-seater fighting ma- 
chines, but is very light, so that it climbs with ex- 
traordinary speed and can stand very much on its tail 
to shoot. The last fight I had was with one of them 
just a couple of days ago when the weather cleared up 
long enough to let us get in one flight. I was leading 
a patrol of three other men when I saw this single tri- 
plane detach himself from a group and start into his 
own lines. I found afterwards that he had made an 
unsuccessful attack on some of our two-seaters and in 
doing so had evidently gotten separated from the rest 
of his patrol. At all events the four of us jumped on 
him at about 5000 metres and everybody had a few 
cracks at him, but before we got to close range he 
started doing all kinds of stunts so that he made the 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 177 

hardest sort of a target. The other men seemed to 
think we had hirn and did not follow him down, but I 
have seen this sort of thing too often to take anything 
for granted and felt sure the linn was just throwing 
his machine around in order to get away and that it 
was not out of control, Hence J kept after hirn, shoot- 
ing whenever I could get my gun about on him. It 
(forked to perfection this time and I must have fired 
about a hundred and fifty shots, some of them at as 
close as 40 yards range, or even less. But all the time 
he was doing spins, renversements, etc., and all the 
tricks of the trade. I know perfectly well I hit his 
machine a number of times, but did not have the hick 
or rather, was not accurate enough to set it on fire or 
get the pilot. Once when I was diving seventy yards 
behind and above him, at high speed and plugging 
away, he suddenly pulled up into one of those steep 
climbs for which these machines are remarkable. I 
pulled up as quickly as I could without risk of break- 
ing something, but the Hun ended up 75 yards above 
me, and rather had the advantage if he had used it 
properly. I put on my motor wide open, and by pulling 
rny machine into a climb, was able to get my gun in line- 
just as he started to turn. Gave him a blast and came 
pretty close; in fact, this was one of several times when 
I thought I might have gotten him. Anyhow, it seemed 
to give him such a thrill, that he fell on his nose and 
passed below me again, where it was a simple matter 
to dive after him once more. I chased him down to 
2,. 500 metres and then being alone and not knowing 
where I was, on account of many clouds below, except 
that I was a considerable distance on the German side 
of the fence, I had to give it up as a bad job. He got 



178 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

away all right for I saw him pull up and fly off home 
in a perfectly normal way. This new Hun machine 
can outclimb our Spads but is not as fast nor as strong 
and on account of its light weight you can catch them 
easily in a dive. If, therefore, one remembers their 
one strong point and watches out for it, they should 
not prove as difficult to handle as some of the other 
German types. 

Have had three other fights since last writing, two 
of them with these same Fokker tri-planes. My gun 
has been working much better and twice the Huns 
went down but only, I think, as a means of escape. 
At the time of the second fight I was flying with one 

of our men whose name is F and who has been 

doing remarkably good work, having gotten seven 
Huns officially, in the past two months, two of them 
in one day, since we arrived in this sector. He has 
great nerve and audacity but takes a great many 
chances which would bring a less skilful man to grief. 
His great assets seem to be quickness of decision, get- 
ting to very close range, and then shooting with great 
accuracy. 

On the occasion I speak of he was leading, and I 
wanted to watch him and see just what his methods 
were. We saw a number of Huns fooling around far 
in their own lines, and waited for some minutes for 
them to come out, but as they showed no inclination 
to come, we went in to see if we could not get a shot 
at them. There were about fourteen chasse machines 
in all, tri-plane Fokkers, Albatross, and Pfalz, three 

types of Hun single-seaters. F had a scrap with 

a couple of them and shot up one Fokker, which he 
saw go down in a spin almost to the ground. I did 
not get in it at first as I had to stay up to keep the 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 179 

rest of the army from going down on F , but pretty 

soon I got a chance at a Pfalz, which got a bit off to 
one side of the others. Fired about 15 shots when my 
gun stuck, but as it was I could not have fired any 
more shots to advantage anyhow, for the Hun went 
immediately onto his nose and then into a spin. Saw 
him go down this way for 1000 metres, but could not 
watch him further on account of the others which 
started after us in force. We asked confirmation on 
these Huns, but could get none, so I guess they did 
not crash, although if they did they may have been 
too far in their own lines to have been seen by our 
observers on the ground. We of course could not sail 
into the middle of an outfit like this, but you can often 
pick one off on the edge of a group and get away 
before the others can come to his assistance. 

My other scrap was with a big Rumpler two-seater. 
I fired a hundred and fifty shots, and he about a 
hundred, I suppose. I hit him and had him about 
where I wanted him when some others came up and 
forced me to call it off. He went off smoking into his 
own fines, but did not go down. This makes nine 
fights now since I got my last official Hun. The 
machine gun trouble has hindered me three or four 
times and knocked out a couple of the best chances, 
but one should be able to do better than this. My 
shooting has not been what it should be and I do not 
get close enough before beginning to fire. 

May 25, 1918, Hopital de l'Ocean, 
La Panne, Belgium. 

I am really beginning to feel more like myself to- 
day, so am going to start on that promised letter. 
Not that I have been feeling very badly for I really have 



180 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

not, but the pain and inflammation in my knee has 
kept me rather tired and listless, so that it has seemed 
impossible to get up sufficient energy to do much 
writing. 

I am very glad I sent you those cables at once for 
the only thing that I have seen in the papers about 
myself was incorrect and misleading. There was a 
notice in the Paris N. Y. Herald which said that my 
machine was seen to finally crash and that later I had 
been picked up in No Man's Land by a French patrol 
with a bullet through my leg. This would naturally 
give the impression that I was too seriously hurt to 
be able to help myself, so here is hoping you got one 
of my several cables in good time. I sent several 
through different channels on the chance that one 
might be delayed. I shall tell you from start to finish 
what happened, although you probably know most of 
it already. 

On the morning of May 15th at about 9.30, Baker, 

Lieut. F and myself sallied forth, in response to a 

telephone call saying that there were a great many 
Huns on the lines and more of our machines were 
needed. We three were on the " alert" patrol for 
the morning and it is the duty of such a patrol to send 
out machines in response to special calls, etc. I was 
leading the party and when we got to the lines the 
Huns had evidently gone in, for there were none in 
sight except very far within their own lines. We 

cruised about for a while quite high up and F had 

to go in owing to motor trouble, leaving Baker and 
myself. I noticed a lone Boche two-seater sailing 
about in his own lines, but he was very low down and 
not in a good position to attack and I did not want to 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 181 

go down and lose all that altitude until we were sure 
the activity up above had quieted down. I mean the 
activity which had brought the telephone call, for we 
had certainly seen none ourselves to speak of. To go 
down from 4500 to 1000 metres and then have the 
Huns come along at the altitude you have just left, 
means that it will take you about fifteen minutes to 
get up to them again; and then, nine times out of ten, 
it is too late. Accordingly, we took another turn 
about, and seeing nothing I went back to see if the 
lone two-seater was still there, and saw him still sail- 
ing around in wide circles, evidently regulating artil- 
lery fire. Also noticed a large white cloud just over 
the lines opposite and above the Hun, so I thought we 
might try to spring a little surprise on him. We dove 
down on our side of the cloud where he could not see 
us, flew along just above it until the Hun made a turn 
near the lines, when I ducked down through a hole 
and went for him. Unfortunately, he saw us com- 
ing, and when I was within 150 yards of him, up went 
his tail and he started diving full motor into his own 
country. I dove after him as fast as my bus would 
go and overhauled him a little but could not get to 
good close range; started shooting at about 100 yards 
range and the Boche commenced zigzagging as he 
dove. I got in about seventy-five shots, I suppose, and 
suddenly saw the machine gunner apparently almost 
fall overboard, then throw up his arms and disappear 
in the fuselage. Evidently he had gotten it even 
though the pilot had not. Just at this moment when 
I think with a few more shots I might have finished 
the whole outfit, my gun stuck, due to a defective 
cartridge and I had to give it up. I thought for a few 



182 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

minutes that the Hun might crash anyhow, but he 
pulled up just over some houses and very low down, 
for I could see his shadow on the ground close beside 
him as he dashed off out of sight into his own back 
areas. The scrap ended three or four miles in Hun- 
land, and we got rather heavily "archied" coming out, 
but nothing close enough to be dangerous. 

When we got back to our lines a few minutes' work 
sufficed to get my gun running again and we started 
up the lines in the direction of home, as our gasoline 
was getting low. Ten minutes after the first fight we 
were flying along inside our own lines, when I noticed 
a peculiar two-seater circling very low down between 
the trenches, he could not have been more than 600 
metres up. I took him for an English infantry liaison 
machine, which he very much resembled, but then 
noticed that he seemed to circle into the Boche lines 
with remarkable impunity considering his very low 
altitude, so decided to investigate. Sure enough 
there were the old black crosses on him showing plainly 
as he swung almost under me in making a turn over 
our lines. I said that this Hun was flying between the 
trenches as he was, but in this most terrible of all the 
battlefields that I have seen, you cannot distinguish 
the trenches from above, and in many places they 
consist simply of shell-holes joined together. The par- 
ticular spot where we encountered this Hun is less 
than two miles from Oliver Chadwick's grave, so that 
from the pictures and descriptions I have already sent 
you, you know pretty much what the country is like. 
Very low and flat and the ground nothing but a con- 
glomerate mass of shell-holes filled with water, and 
barbed wire. Here and there a wrecked concrete 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 183 

shelter or "pill box," and the shattered stumps of 
trees. 

The only way that I knew that my friend was really 
a Hun was by his crosses, for it was the first Boche 
machine of the kind that I had ever seen, and indeed I 
have never heard of any one that I know, running into 
one like it. He had a rounded body like some French 
machines, the tail was square and the lower wing 
much shorter than the upper, like many of the English 
two-seater observation planes. All the Hun two- 
seaters that I have ever seen or heard of before, have 
both the upper and lower wings approximately the 
same length. In addition to this it was the slowest 
bus you ever saw and I think I could go two miles to 
his one. All this leads me to believe that it was a 
new type of German armored plane which they call 
" Junkers" and which I have read about in the avia- 
tion reports. They are built especially for this low 
infantry liaison work and are heavily armored about 
the fuselage to protect them from fire from the ground. 
In consequence of their great weight they cannot go 
very high and are extremely slow. This fellow must 
have been a squadron leader or something, for he had 
four big streamers attached to his wings, one on the 
top and another on the lower plane on each side. Per- 
haps, however, these may have merely been means of 
identification for the benefit of his own infantry, al- 
though it is very common for patrol leaders to carry 
such streamers so that their pilots may easily distin- 
guish them from the other machines in the patrol. 
Personally I have a big blue band around the fuselage 
of my machine and also a blue nose, which serves the 
same purpose. Whether or not this fellow was what 



IS I THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

I think he was, I hope that when T am flying again I 
may see him or at least another like him and have 
another go at him. He certainly got the best of me, 
and I don't feel at all vindictive about it, as it was a 
perfectly fair fight, but just the same it would give 
me more satisfaction to bring (hat boy down than any 
five others. It would also be interesting to see whether 
his hide is thick enough to stand a good dose of armor- 
piercing bullets at short range. An incendiary bullet 
in his gas tank might also make his old boiler factory a 
warm place to fly in. 

As soon as T was sure that the machine was really a 
Hun I dove down after him and made up my mind 
this time to get at good close range. I did, and ended 
up fifty yards directly behind his tail and slightly 
below, but I made one bad mistake, a real beginner's 
trick which was the cause of all my troubles. I evi- 
dently was not quite far enough below him and I had 
not fired more than one or two shots when T got caught 
in the back draught from his propeller, which joggled 
my machine about so that anything approaching accu- 
rate shooting became an impossibility. I saw one 
bullet go three feet to one side of him and another 
several feet on the other side, so stopped shooting for 
a second to get in better position. Any one with a 
little experience should know better than to get him- 
self caught like this, especially myself, for I had the 
same thing happen with the first Hun I ever brought 
down. That time I dove down a little before shooting 
at all, and then fired from a good position a little lower 
down. Hence, when I found myself in the same 
trouble this time, I tried to remedy the situation in the 
same way, but in doing so I entirely failed, for the 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 185 

instant, to appreciate the very slow speed of the Hun. 
I was already close to him, and when I dove down and 
then pulled up to shoot, I found to my astonishment 
that I had overshot the mark and was almost directly 
under him, so much so that it was impossible to get 
my gun on him. He started swerving from side to 
side to get me out from under him so that the machine 
gunner could shoot, and I tried to stay under him, 
swerving as lie did and at the same time slowing down 
my motor to the limit so as to try to let him get ahead 
of me enough to allow me to start shooting again. 
The Boche and I were at this time about twenty yards 
apart and if he had only had a trap-door in his bottom 
he might have brought me down by dropping a brick 
on my head. However, he did not need it. The Hun 
gave a twist which took me for an instant beyond the 
protection of his fuselage. It was only for a second or 
two, but that was sufficient for the observer, who pro- 
ceeded to do the quickest and most accurate bit of 
shooting that I have yet run up against. As a rule in 
such a situation, you see the observer look over the 
side of his machine at you, and then swing his gun 
around on its pivot and point it in your direction. 
While he is doing this you have time to duck. 

In this case, however, I saw a black-helmcted head 
appear over the edge of the Hun machine and almost 
at the same instant he fired, as quickly as you could 
snap-shoot with a pistol, or with a shot gun at a quail 
in the brush, for instance. In trying to slow down as 
much as possible I had gotten into almost a loss of 
speed, so that my machine did not perhaps answer to 
the controls as quickly as it otherwise would have. 
This, however, made no difference, for although I 



L86 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

tried my best to swerve back under the Boche'g body 
to got out of bis line of fire, and in Bpite of the groat 
quickness with which he shot, he was as accurate as 
he was quick and his very first shot, came smashing 
through the front, of my machine above the motor and 
caught me just on bop of the left knee. It felt more 
like a crack on the leg from a fast-pitched baseball 

than anything else 1 Know of except thai there is also 
a. sort of penetrating fooling one gets from a bullet. 

How many more bullets hit the machine 1 don't know 
and never had a chance to find out, but my motor went 
dead at once, so that knocked out all chance of any 
further shots at the Boche. I doxc under him out of 
his lino of lire and then twisted sharply around and 
planed back for our own lines, trying to make the most 
of the little height I had. A glance at my gauges 
Showed no pressure in the gas tank, and that together 
with the way in which the motor stopped made it 
quite obvious that the trouble was a severed pressure 
Or main gasoline pipe. Now wo carry a special little 
emergency tank which is operated by gravity and is 
for just such occasions. It will run ten or fifteen 
minutes, plenty of time to find a good landing place. 
I tried to turn it on but the little stop-cock would not 
budge, so I dropped my controls and lotting the ma- 
chine take care of itself for an instant, tried with both 
hands to move it. Still no effect; it had evidently 
also boon put out of business by a bullet, probably the 
same which cut the main connections. It only took 
a few seconds to cover the distance to the ground, 
which could not have been more than three hundred 
yards after I had gotten turned in the right direction. 

Kept working away until the last minute, trying to 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 187 

get the motor going, for every one who knows this 
country also knows that it is utterly Impossible to 
land any machine in it without crashing; let alone a 
Spad which requires at least as great speed Tor land- 
ing as any other type. All my efforts were usele I, 
however, and I saw that there was nothing for it but 
to smash up as gracefully as possible. The thing that 
bothered me most, however, was not the smash, for 
that would probably only result in a little shaking up, 
but I thought I was further in the Hun lines fchao 1 
was and had most unpleasant vision:; of : pending the 

rest of the war in Germany, which Is not at all my 

idea of a good time. If, however, it was No Man's 
Land where \ was going down, 1 thought the Buns 
would probably turn their guns loose on my plane as 
soon as it crashed and that the best tiling to do would 
be to get Out and away from it as quickly as possible. 

I held my machine off the ground as long as 1 could, 
with the double purpose of getting as far towards our 
own lines as possible and also so as to reduce my speed 
to a minimum before I touched the ground and the 
crash came. Braced myself inside: my cockpit and 
tucked in my head like a blooming turtle in his shell. 
Just at the last moment I vccrc/l the plane a little 
to one side to avoid landing in the middle of a barbed 
wire entanglement and then the instant my wheel:-: 
touched the ground, over my machine went in the 
middle of its back with a loud crash. A 8001] as it 
was over I unbuckled my belt and scrambling out lost 
no time in rolling into a nearby shell-hole. 

I looked around, rather expecting to see a buncfa of 
Hun- running up to grab me but there was not a liv- 
ing soul in sight and the place seemed remarkably 



188 THE WA"S OF THE EAGLE 

quiet. Twenty yards to one Bide was an old artillery 
observation post made of sand bags which looked as 
though it might make a fairly secure hiding place, so 
1 decided to get there while the going was good, for I 
felt sure that it could not be long before things started 
to happen. 1 crawled towards this shelter as fast as 
1 could go, trying always to keep out of sight in the 
shell-holes, rolling over the edges of the craters and 
half swimming, half wading through the water and 
mubk with which they are tilled. On the way 1 passed 
a dilapidated lot oi' barbed wire. 1 suppose 1 reached 
the shelter in less than a minute after hitting the 
ground and just as 1 got there machine guns seemed 
to open up all around. The Ilun whom I had so un- 
successfully tried to bring down was flying overhead 
and I think shooting at the wreck o( my machine, 
although 1 did not look to be sure. Then the Boche 
gunners in the trenches turned loose with a machine 
gun or two on my plane and some of the English 
infantry began tiring at the Hun plane to drive him 
off, while others, as 1 learned afterwards, tired at me, 
thinking that it was a llun that had comedown. The 
average infantryman, you know, does not know much 
about aviation, and sometimes finds it difficult to dis- 
tinguish between his own planes and those of the 
enemy. Altogether there was quite a rumpus, so I 
just lay low in my shelter, and as the bullets went 
singing by, was mighty glad 1 had a shelter \o lie low in. 
The Boche plane was still (lying around and I did 
not dare come out until he had gone for he would have 
seen me and potted me like a rat. While I waited I 
tore open my pants ami had a look at my knee. It 
did not seem to amount to much —two or three holes 



ESCADKILLE LAFAYETTE L89 

as big as the end of your little finger and about a 
dozen little ones. It looked as though I had stopped 
a load of bird shot more than anything else. It bled 
very little, but I tied if up with my handkerchief any- 
how to keep the mud and crater out. 

In less than five minutes after I had come down I 
heard the sound which I liar] been expecting and 
dreading, the whine of a Boche shell coming. The 
fir i one landed about a hundred yards over my plane 
but the line seemed to be perfect. I waited I 
wh( re the next one would go and the next five or six 
all landed in about the same place, perhaps seventy- 
five yards in front, of me, but rather effectively cutting 

me off from the English trenches. They were; all big 
ones (5.9 inch calibre) and came at perhaps 30-second 
intervals to start with, later they speeded up a bit and 
sent sometimes three; or four over at the same time. 
They used high explosive, luckily for me, instead of 
shrapnel, but the II. E. makes a terrific commotion 
when it goes off and throws a column of mud and 
d<'luis nearly a hundred yards in the air. Seems to 
have rather more bark than bite, however. 

Pretty SOOn they began to come closer, and though 
T hated to leave my cozy shelter I decided to get mov- 
ing again for if one of those boys had landed in my im- 
mediate ricinity, there La no doubt, at all but that my 
shelter and I would have gone for a rid'-. It seemed 
just a question of time until this happened, so I took to 
crawling and swimming in shell-hole:- again. Stopped 
for a minute to rest in another little shelter, which was 
about the size of a, chicken coop, arid into which I 
could just fit myself by drawing my knees up under 
my chin. A couple of 5.0 shells went off just behind 



190 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

my little Band bag house, rocking it from side to side. 
This made crawling seem a very slow method of get- 
ting away, so decided to try running. Before my leg 

stiffened up it did not hurt much, but even so, with 
those big shells coming that elose, I think I could give 
a pretty good imitation of running, without any legs 
at all. 

While in the first shelter T had taken a good look at 
the sun and at the German and English lines of sausage 
balloons, so that T was fairly sure of my direction. 
Hence I waited until a shell had just burst and then 
got up and made a dash for it along the edge of a little 
old narrow gauge railway where the going was smoother. 
Had not gone far when a sniper's bullet cracked into a 
rail alongside of me and I heard the whiz of some more 
big shells coming. Down goes little Willie flat on his 
face in the ditch and boom, boom, boom went three 
of them just to one side. After their first long shots, 
the Hun artillery evidently got a couple of practically 
direct hits on my overturned machine, for they blew 
tin 1 wheels o\'(, tore the wings from one side, and gen- 
erally finished it, thereby making me exceedingly glad 
that I was no longer in it. After this they seemed to 
change their range again and began putting them back 
where the first ones had fallen and as I had by this 
time reached this spot they came much too close for 
comfort. There was nothing for it but to get on as 
fast as possible, for crawling won't help you if one of 
these big fellows decides he wants to share your shell- 
hole. 

I kept on running and crawling as opportunity 
offered and each time T heard a shell coming dove 
head first into the nearest shell-hole. Am afraid my 





1 


• 



"Iii Flanders fields the 

Wreck of the machine shown facing |>; 



sblo 
with 



pilot' 




A portion of the Ypres 



rtor. 



the spot where the author was shot down on May 15, L918. The ground 

shown is higher than thai where the author came down, anil the picture 

was taken altera dry spell, in the foreground are the remains of a trench 
liter bombardment. 



BSCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 191 

diving form was rather poor, for a Tommy told me 
later that they could see the splash I made all the 
w;i,y from their lines. But what ):; form among Allies? 
You can't imagine how the sound of a l>ij/ one coming 
close make you want to hug the mud in die bottom 
of any old hole that comes along, J guesi I had the 
wind up all right (English for being scared) but then 
I am not used to (his kind of war and \ hope I shall 
never have to I":. I struck two more lines of barbed 
wire entanglements which were in good condition and 
very i.hu:k. I was afraid to stand up in full new of 
the Suns and try to climb over them, which would 
probably have only resulted in my getting completely 
tangled up, especially as I still had on my heavy fur- 
lined flying combination. Therefore in both o 
went under, rolling in each case into a big shell-hole, 
submerging up to my chin and swimming under, pn h- 
ing the win: up with my hands as I went. Funny 
what one will flunk of in such a situation, but I had 
to laugh at my elf a I remembered Bairnsfather's 
comic drawings, "The Better 'Ole" and "When 'Jo 
they feed the Sea Lion?" it you don't remember 
them, look them up in the collection of Bairnsfather 

that f lent you by N and you will see 

what I mean. I don't think I ever really appreciated 
;i.ll there is in those drawings until then. 

Finally I sat down in a shell-hole to take <>tt my 
combination, for being soaking wet if. weighed a ton 
and had me so all if) J felt as though I could lug i f do 
further. Just then l looked up and have never been 
so delighted In my life as when I saw half a dozen 
Tommies beckoning to me over a low parapet about 
fifty yard.-; away. I was pretty well fed up with 



192 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

crawling and swimming by this time, so decided to 
cover that last fifty yards quickly, bullets or no bul- 
lets. Made a run for it and it is too bad some one 
did not have a stop-watch to take the time, for I think 
I was about two seconds flat. I fairly threw myself 
into that trench and then in an Irish brogue came 
the question, "Faith, and who are you?" "I'm an 
American," says I, panting for breath, for I was a 
bit all in from running. This surprised them very 
much. Some one yelled over from another trench 
nearby to know if they had captured a Boche and one 
of the Tommies said, "Ay say Maitie, when you furst 
com down we was afther thinkhY you was a bloody 
'Un." They had been led astray by the different 
arrangement of the colors in the American cocarde, 
nil, blue, and white reading from the outer circle in, 
instead of red, white, and blue, as in the French; and 
blue, white, and red, as in the English. 

This trench where I ended up was an advanced post 
at the extreme end of a corner salient, so that my 
choice of direction was very lucky as it took me to the 
aearest possible friendly point. It was, however, com- 
pletely isolated so that no one could go or come during 
the hours of daylight, and there was nothing for it 
but to wait until dark. I reached the trench about 
noon. The trench was manned by a platoon from an 
Irish regiment,* most of them from Ulster and, of 
course all volunteers, and a mighty good lot they were. 
One of the stretcher bearers put some iodine and a ban- 
dage on my wound, and another fellow produced bread 
and butter with good hot Oxo soup, made on a little 
hard-alcohol stove. Cigarettes were plentiful and we 

* Royal Irish Rifles.' 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 193 

settled down to an infantryman's day in the trenches 
for a change. The weather was beautiful, with a 
warm sun, and just a few fleecy clouds floating about. 
The Huns kept on for a while dropping 5.9's around 
the wreck of my poor machine, of which we could see 
a portion of a shattered wing from the trench, and 
then things subsided into what the men considered a 
rather quiet day. 

There were no officers in the trench, the platoon 
being in charge of a couple of very intelligent and 
seemingly capable sergeants. We sat and chatted 
about the war and the affairs of the nations in general 
and every now and then some one would produce a cup 
of hot tea, cocoa, or coffee, with hard tack, bread, and 
butter and such knick-knacks. These men get their 
breakfast at 3.30 a. m., and then nothing comes near 
them again until 9.30 p. m., when it is dark enough to 
bring up supper, so naturally they take a lot of little 
odds and ends to spell them in between times. The 
trench was an open affair with no head protection 
except in one or two places where a piece of light sheet 
metal was thrown across, but this would of course stop 
nothing worse than a spent piece of shrapnel. The 
Huns shelled our immediate vicinity very little except 
for four shells, the first of which fell a hundred yards 
away, the next fifty, and then two at about twenty- 
five yards on each side, straddling us. No one paid 
much attention to them; one or two of the men would 
look up, laugh and say, ''Hey there, Jerry's wakin' 
up again." Several times we saw some Hun two-seat- 
ers in the distance and twice a patrol of single-seaters 
passed over, well up. Our "Archies" got after one 
patrol of four and split it all up so that I prayed that 



194 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

one of our own patrols might come along, for those 
four solitary Huns would have made fine picking. The 
English artillery was much more active and our own 
shells kept shrieking just above our heads all day long, 
for an hour or two in the afternoon becoming very 
lively indeed. We could watch the shells landing on 
the Hun trenches four or five hundred yards away, 
and throwing up great clouds of dirt and wreckage, 
and a most interesting and comforting sight it was. 

Towards sun-down the men began to get restless 
from the long hours of sitting in cramped positions, 
and commenced moving about in the trench, and show- 
ing their heads above the parapet in a way that seemed 
to be foolish. You may be sure that I did not show 
even the end of my nose, for having gotten that far 
I was taking no more chances than I had to. The 
sergeant cautioned them, but they did not pay much 
heed until suddenly " crack" and the dirt flew from 
the end of the parapet, where a sniper's bullet had 
landed. If it had been six inches higher a Tommy 
who was standing directly in line with it would have 
now been in Kingdom Come; but then this war is all 
"ifs" of that sort. This warning was luckily sufficient 
for pretty soon another bullet jostled a sand bag 
directly in front of where I was sitting. After one 
more ineffectual try the sniper called it off, but the 
episode brought forth an anecdote from one of the 
men. He said that a year or so before he had been 
sitting in a trench when one of the men had carelessly 
shown his head. A sniper took a shot at him and 
missed by a couple of inches, to which the intended 
victim replied "Hey there, Jerry, missed me, didn't 
ye? 'ave another go at it" and stuck his head above 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 195 

the parapet again. Quick as a flash — crack — and a 
man next to him caught the foolhardy soldier as he 
fell with a ball squarely in the middle of his forehead. 
"Now," added the teller of this story, "that guy was 
just arsking for it and he got it. You guys there will 
get it too if you keeps on arskin, so help yourselves, 
but not me!" This was the wisdom of an old timer, 
and I think it was wisdom which many a soldier would 
do well to take to heart. 

I had an interesting day with those fellows; they had 
seen a lot of service. Several of them had come over 
in 1914 and been at it ever since, many of them had 
been wounded, all the old timers seemed to have been. 
Finally as darkness began to fall an officer came on 
his rounds inquiring for "the missing airman," and I 
hobbled off across the duck boards after him, using an 
old pick handle as a cane, for my knee had grown very 
sore and stiff during the day. Our path was in plain 
view of the enemy trenches, but it was by this time 
tco dusk for them to make us out so we were not dis- 
turbed. 

A walk of four hundred yards brought us to com- 
pany headquarters and there I had supper with three 
officers in their bomb-proof shelter. It reminded me 
more of a large dog kennel than anything else, and to 
negotiate the door it was necessary to crawl on all 
fours. The Colonel had sent up word from battalion 
headquarters that he hoped that I would dine with 
him, but as the officers at company headquarters had 
also invited me I was glad to take the first meal avail- 
able. The dugout where we ate served as a general 
dining-room for the officers and also as living quarters 
for two of them. It was perhaps three and a half feet 



196 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

high and certainly not more than eight by six feet in 
extent, but of course a vast improvemenl on what the 
men have. While on duly in the front linos fchey just 
Bop down anywhere (hoy can when it is not their turn 
on guard. 

My day as an infantryman made me very glad to be 
in the aviation, but the peculiar part about it is that 
you will rarely if ever hud a Tommy who envies us. 
I can't imagine anything much worse than the exist- 
ence o( these fellows with whom 1 spent the day in 
the front line trench. With nothing but an open 
trench io protect them, affording no place to rest or 
sleep, except by sitting on the bottom and leaning up 

against the side, and the trench necessarily so shallow 
from the nature o( the ground that to stand upright 
meant exposing one's head and shoulders, they have 
to stick it there for stretches o( a week :it a time, ami 
sometimes when there is an attack on and the reliefs 
are scarce, the sessions are much longer. The bottom 
of the trench is always full o( water; the duck boards 
keep you out o( it in dry weather, but when it is wet 
they are submerged. All day and night the shells fall 
around them, sometimes very thick, and again only at 
long intervals. If one lands in the trench or on the 
parapet, if of course means heavy casualties. The in- 
cautious showing of a head may bring a sniper's bullet 
or a. burst oi machine-gun tire at any minute. The 
sergeant told me that he thought what made the men 
more "windy" than anything else in such an advanced 
post was the thought o^i being severely wounded and 
having io lie there all day before being able to get io 
a doctor. In a very serious case, where it meant life 
or death to get a man operated on at once, the stretcher 



ESCADMLLE LAFAYETTE 197 

bearers would of course chance it and take a patient 
in in full view of the Huns, but the sniping of stretcher 
bearers has become so common that this is only done 
when absolutely necessary. What a contrast to our 
cosy billets far in the rear, where we have nothing to 
fear when not flying other than an occasional bombing 
at night. Bad weather brings the hardest times of all 
to the infantry, while to the flying corps it means idle- 
ness in comfortable quarters. Nevertheless, the in- 
fantrymen will tell you every time that you earn your 
comforts and that you only fall once in an aeroplane, 
or words to like effect. 

After supper with the company officers I crawled 
out of the dugout and started on a walk of perhaps a 
half mile or more to the battalion headquarters, the 
nearest point to which an ambulance could come up. 
As we passed along the trench I noticed a couple of 
large fresh shell-holes that had blown in the edge of 
it, and my guide informed me that one of them had 
sent the company sergeant-major to Kingdom Come 
the night before. 

By the time we were started across the duck-boards 
once more the last light had faded from the west 
and a brilliant moon in its first quarter lit up the 
whole scene. This country, as I have tried to de- 
scribe it to you, is fantastic enough during the day, 
but by moonlight it becomes more so. Behind the 
trenches on both sides the sky is constantly lit up by 
the flashes of the guns, and their shells go whining 
overhead in weird fashion. It would not take much 
imagination to hear in them, the shrieks of the thou- 
sands of departed spirits, whose earthly carcasses are 
rotting in this same ground. The trenches themselves 



198 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

are lit every few seconds by star shells and there is a 
constant procession of signal lights and chains of lumi- 
nous balls which look like those which come from the 
burst of a rocket. I do not know what they all mean 
except for certain kinds of chains of fiery balls which 
we call "flaming onions," and which I believe the 
Huns send up to guide their night-flying machines. 

Every now and then there comes a burst of machine- 
gun fire, from first one point and then another, as 
some gunner gets jumpy or thinks he sees something 
suspicious in the gloom of No Man's Land or the 
trenches beyond. The tracer bullets from the machine 
guns make their contribution to the greatest display of 
fireworks imaginable. Above it all comes the throb- 
bing of the motors of the night bombing planes of 
both sides as they cross the lines in search of their 
various objectives. Speaking of this, you may have 
noticed in the papers that the Huns have been again 
at then* old tricks of bombing hospitals and been very 
successful at it, as they usually are at such work. As 
we trudged slowly along we passed reliefs coming up 
to take their turn in the trenches, stretchers loaded 
with hot suppers for the men, etc., etc., for those 
front fines in this flat country must be fed and sup- 
plied in the dark. I could not help thinking of An- 
dalusia with the same moon sparkling on the river, 
shining on the great white pillars of the house and 
throwing the shadows of the stately trees across the 
lawn on a peaceful spring evening. Quite a contrast 
to this wreck of Flanders. 

Battalion headquarters reached at last. The doctor 
dressed my knee again and I went into the mess room, 
where I found the Colonel. Headquarters proved to 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 199 

be a veritable mine, an intricate arrangement of corri- 
dors and rooms all sunk at least thirty feet below- 
ground so as to be proof against the heaviest shells or 
bombs. Pumps were constantly working, drawing off 
the water, for otherwise such a place would be nothing 
but a well. The Colonel produced a bottle of Scotch, 
for which I was very thankful, for I felt like a bracer. 
While I waited for the ambulance I told him what had 
happened and he seemed to think I had done well and 
been mighty lucky to get out of it, for it so happened 
that he had been in. the front lines at the time I came 
down and had seen the whole show. He was most 
agreeable and we had a long talk, as the ambulance 
was a couple of hours in getting there. He was send- 
ing up one of his engineer officers to save anything he 
could from my machine and blow up the rest. I dis- 
couraged this plan, for I recalled the sad experience 
of a French patrol which tried to reach a Hun machine 
that I brought down last month between the lines 
on the Chemin des Dames. I had had some eighty 
hours of flight out of my machine already, so it was 
about done anyway and not much of a loss, and the 
Hun artillery had pretty thoroughly finished what was 
left of it after the crash. We take great care not 
to mark on our maps anything on our side of the 
lines, so there was nothing the Huns could learn 
even if they did reach the wreck. Perhaps a few in- 
struments, such as the compass and altimeter or even 
the machine-gun might have been saved, but to my 
mind the mere chance of this is not worth risking lives 
for. Needless to say, I had stopped for nothing once 
I hit the ground, but only lost an extra flying helmet 
and a pair of goggles, so far as my personal effects went. 



200 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

I would like to emphasize again the kindness and 
cordiality which I have always met with at the hands 
of the English. This is the third time that I have 
been thrown upon their hospitality, and always with 
the same result. It has not been merely the officers 
but all ranks that have shown this spirit of fellowship. 
There was nothing that the men in the front trenches 
did not try to do for me. They were continually pro- 
ducing hot drinks, and insisted on sharing with me all 
the little comforts they had, and would hear of no 
refusal on my part. I learned that several of the men 
and two of the officers had volunteered to go out and 
bring me in out of No Man's Land in broad daylight. 
When I came in they were preparing to start. This 
meant leaving the comparative safety of their trenches, 
and taking a long chance of being killed on the possi- 
bility of being able to reach me, and bring me in, and 
would have required a large amount of nerve and self- 
sacrifice. For me it was a case of being " between the 
devil and the deep sea" and running one danger to 
escape a worse; but for them there was no such alter- 
native. As I have already told you, by the time I 
got to company headquarters I had two invitations to 
dinner and there was nothing for my comfort and 
assistance that these fellows did not think of. At last 
the ambulance arrived and proved to be one of Henry 
Ford's vintage. I was never so glad to see a "tin 
Lizzie" in my life, for I had had enough walking for 
the time being. Just as I piled in a poor fellow who 
had been gassed came staggering along, supported by 
two comrades. They propped him up in a corner of 
the ambulance and as we drove along in the darkness, 
for of course no lights can be shown, he sat there gur- 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 201 

gling and gasping for breath, evidently in the greatest 
pain. Every now and then a spasm would strike him 
and it seemed as though he must choke to death. In 
spite of the modern masks, every time there is a bom- 
bardment with gas shells there are always a few men 
who get caught by it. The rotten stuff seems to he 
for days in shell-holes and such places, and men will 
suddenly be affected when no gas has been sent over 
for a day or so. This is one form of war which the 
infantry has to face that, thank heaven, we are not 
troubled with. 

We finally reached the ambulance headquarters 
about 3.30 a. m., and after getting an anti-tetanus in- 
jection I turned in on a cot for the rest of the night, 
just as day was breaking, for there was no ambulance 
going to the hospital until morning. My knee hurt 
too much to permit of sleep and there was a big British 
gun concealed in a woods nearby which kept pegging 
away, shaking the whole place at each discharge. 
This together with a lively bombardment going on 
further away, but which nevertheless sounded pretty 
close, would have made sleep an uncertain quantity 
anyhow for one accustomed to only more distant bom- 
bardments. Among the officers at this place were four 
American medical lieutenants who seemed like a very 
nice lot. I breakfasted with them and the English 
officers, among the latter a colonel, and felt rather 
ashamed of my sorry appearance. I certainly looked 
more like a second-class soldier than an officer. Since 
I have been acting as armament officer of the squad- 
ron I have taken to wearing a pair of enlisted men's 
breeches cut down to fit, for my work requires a cer- 
tain amount of tinkering with machine guns that plays 



202 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

havoc with one's uniform. Then the American tunic 
with its high, tight collar is almost impossible to fly 
in if one is to do any looking to the rear. Hence I 
wore simply a sweater over my army shut, and have 
also stuck to my French poilu boots, the most com- 
fortable and serviceable footwear I know. On the 
morning before, we had gone out unexpectedly, so that 
I had not had a chance to shave, and altogether in my 
torn breeches held together with a couple of safety 
pins, and the whole outfit caked with mud, I was in- 
deed a sorry spectacle of an officer. 

After sending off a cable to you I got an ambulance 
about 9 a. m. and started for a British casualty clear- 
ing station. I was sitting in front with the driver, 
and when about half-way there what should I see 
coming but one of the squadron light cars with Maj. 

T , Hobey and M in it. I leaned out as we 

passed and yelled "Hey! Where are you going?" and 
when they saw who it was they all looked as though 
they had seen a ghost and nearly fell out of the car. 
The day before Hobey Baker had been unable to do 
much in the fight, owing to his having been out a little 
longer than I had and his gasoline being nearly all gone. 
He had seen me start down when the Hun shot me, and 
then smash up in No Man's Land. That afternoon 
they had gotten a report from the English that I had 
been seen to get out of the wreck and jump into a shell- 
hole and that a patrol would be sent out that night to 
try and find me. I had sent them a wireless the night 
before but it had not reached them, and when I tried 
to telephone had been unable to get them. Not hear- 
ing from the English any report as to the result of the 
promised patrol they had naturally concluded that I 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 203 

had been killed or was at best a prisoner, more prob- 
ably the former, and the Major had sent in a report to 
headquarters that I was missing. I most sincerely 
hope that my cable reached you before this rumor got 
out. When I met them they were on their way to the 
front to see what news they could get of me, and as 
you may imagine they were a bit surprised when I 
yelled at them. We had a grand reunion and I think 
the people of the small village where we happened to 
meet thought that the American officers had gone 

crazy. It was a bit dramatic. M and Hobey did 

not say much but both looked as though they were 
going to cry, and if I do say so myself, I think they 
were all glad to see me. The Major offered to send 
me to any hospital I wanted, to Paris even; but as I 
knew this one to be so excellent, and near at hand, I 
asked to come here. I therefore left the English am- 
bulance and went back to the squadron in the light 
car with the others, and then came directly here. At 
the squadron they were no less surprised to see me 

than the Major, M and Hobey had been. 

My knee was very painful and swollen, so I thought 
it best to take no chances, even though the wound did 
not on the surface look as though it amounted to 
much. I am glad I did, for an X-ray disclosed three 
fragments of the bullet lodged against the bone. They 
operated at once, and I think made a very good job 
of it. I did not remember that ether made you feel 
so sick. It is too bad there is no way of telling when 
one is going to get shot, so as not to have to take 
ether on top of a full meal. 



204 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

May 27. 

I have been writing this letter in instalments each 
day as I have had the chance, but it seems to have 
run on a great deal already, so I guess I had better 
bring it to a close and get it off. I asked the doctor 
the day before yesterday morning how much longer I 
should probably be here, and he said two weeks. I 
hope you will not be worried at my being in the hos- 
pital longer than I said in my cables that I should be. 
The wound has not proved much more than I at first 
thought, but the fact that the poisonous fragments of 
the bullet were in my knee for somewhat over twenty- 
four hours before they could be removed, has made it- 
rat her slower in healing than I had expected. I still 
exercise it three or fom* times daily, which is a nuis- 
anee, but has at least resulted in my now being able 
to bend my knee almost as far as the other. 

The men from the squadron have brought me both 
good news and bad during the past few days. Of the 
former I am delighted to hear that Jim Hall is not dead 
but a prisoner and only slightly wounded. He has 
gone through so much and his luck has so wonderfully 
pulled him out of the fire before, that I almost felt it 
in my bones that it would not desert him this time. 
He is a great fellow and the Huns had better keep 
their eye on him or they will wake up some fine morn- 
ing to find him back in France. When I spoke above 
of having been so badly dressed when I was shot down 
I had in mind also this very chance of being taken 
prisoner. When I was brought down I certainly looked 
like a soldier and had nothing with me to prove that 
T was an officer. In my haste to get off I had even 
forgotten my pocketbook. This is a great mistake, 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 205 

and I shall not fly on the lines again without money 
in my pocket and enough uniform to prove my rank. 
If the Huns had caught me they would probably have 
had me cracking rocks behind the lines or going in for 
some other form of outdoor sport of this kind. Their 
treatment of prisoners is generally atrocious, but offi- 
cers are evidently treated much better than the men, 
especially officers in the Flying Corps. Being an offi- 
cer, one might as well have the benefit of this and then 
one could probably do something to better the condi- 
tion of the men. 

Have you noticed in the papers how Lieut. Fonck 
has been going ? Forty-five officially now and with any 
luck he will easily beat Guynemer's record. He is a 
wonderful pilot and a perfectly marvellous shot, and 
seems to me to be easily the most skilful pursuit pilot 
that the war has produced so far. In all this time he 
has only gotten one bullet in his machine, and that 
through a wing. He never seems to get himself in a 
tight corner. I read with interest the clipping you sent 
me about him, for I know him, as he was in Groupe de 
Combat 12 when I was there. 

June 2, 1918. 
About a week ago the Hun long-range guns fired a 
few shells into this town, four of which exploded, the 
first doing practically all the damage. All the shells 
landed within three hundred yards of the hospital and 
it is most unpleasant, for one feels so helpless. I was 
lying in bed writing in the morning and heard the gun 
go off, but thought nothing of it, as the guns firing on 
the lines are plainly audible from here. A second or 
so later a big shell went screaming past the corner of 



206 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

the building, followed almost immediately by a loud 
explosion as it landed. This first shell struck squarely 
in the middle of a military laundry where a lot of 
women and young girls were busy washing and ironing 
soldiers' clothes. The result was about twenty-five 
killed and eighty wounded, the great majority women. 
I suppose the Huns are justified in firing into this town 
when one considers that there are a large number of 
troops quartered here; but just the same, it is one of 
the worst aspects of the war. For an hour or more they 
were carrying by under the window of our room, a lot 
of poor women and girls all cut and covered with 
blood, and their cries were pitiful to hear. Outside 
the reception room there soon collected a crowd of 
weeping mothers and relatives, and it made your heart 
sick to see them. It is bad enough when the wounded 
are soldiers, for that is war; but when it comes to 
women, it seems like something worse than war. 
Granting that the Huns are justified in shelling this 
town now, one cannot but remember that it was they 
who started this hell on earth for their own ends. 
Forgiving and forgetting, with regard to such as they, 
is to my mind, as I have said before, not a sign of a 
Christian spirit but of pure weakness. If Christianity 
requires us to forgive them I am afraid that I am no 
Christian. We have no right to forget, and the mem- 
ory of the millions who have died to defeat the Huns 
forbids that we should do so. When this war is won, 
it will have failed in one of its greatest purposes, if in 
the years to come the Huns are not made to pay in 
full, the penalty for their crimes, so that they may per- 
haps some day come to realize that it does not pay to 
be a beast. Do you wonder that so many wounded 




Lieutenant Rene* Fonck, the ace of aces, in front of hie Spad. 

Lletfcenanl Fonck holdi a crow cm from the machine of the Bun who 
,,.,. credited bj the German* writh having «hol Captain Guynemer. 
-i,«,i down by Lieutenant Fonck three weOa after Captain Guy- 
nemer'* death, near Poperinghe, Belgium. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 207 

men are anxious to get at them again as soon as pos- 
sible ? 

June 11, 1918. 

HOPITAL DE L'OCEAN, VlNCKEM, BELGIUM. 

At last it is definitely decided that I am to leave this 
hospital to-morrow — just four weeks since I came here. 
When I came in I expected, as you know, to be laid 
up for only a short time; but knees seem to be very 
slow and contrary things with regard to getting well. 
Have been taking walks each day of a couple of miles, 

so you see I am all put together again. Major T 

is coming for me to-morrow to take me back to the 
squadron, stopping on the way at a French review, 
where a general is to confer decorations. Among the 
recipients of the Croix de Guerre will be several men 
from the squadron, of whom your angel child gets a 
cross with palm. This for making a darn fool of him- 
self and letting a Hun shoot him, when if he had done 
as he should have, he ought to have plugged the Hun. 
It seems rather funny when one stops to think of it to 
get more credit for being shot down than you would 
for shooting down the other fellow. 

Soon after writing my last letter to father, the whole 
hospital was evacuated from where we were on the sea, 
and we were moved some fifteen miles down the line. 
We are still about the same distance from the front 
and our sausage balloons are very plainly visible. As 
I was taking the air outside the hospital after supper 
a few evenings ago, a lone Hun came across the lines 
and shot down two of our balloons in flames. The 
evening before another one tried the same thing, at 
the same time, but missed the balloon, although he 
forced the observers to jump in their parachutes. The 



208 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Bodies were heavily "archied," but got away safely both 

times, and I met a Belgian pilot* the other day who 
has brought down seven Hun balloons in flames in the 
past three weeks. You see, therefore, that ballooning 
is not such sure death as father seemed to think; true, 
they are more dangerous than attacking enemy ma- 
chinos, but, on the other hand, they are a great deal 
easier to get. 

Another evening, a few days ago, I was taking a walk 
and saw something happen which I think must have 
occurred but a very few times during the war. The 
Roches were intermittently shelling one of our balloons 
with a big gun. They were coming fairly close, but 
the balloon kept changing its altitude to throw them 
off their range, anil it is not often that a balloon is 
brought down by shell fire. They are too far behind 
the lines and the range is too elusive to make 4 it pay. 
Both sides have rather given up shelling them, although 
they still occasionally indulge in the pastime. The 
evening in question I saw a shell burst a considerable 
distance above the balloon, and then as I watched 
another burst several minutes later and perhaps a 
hundred yards directly below. The balloon swung 
around and started skyward, at the same time drifting 
towards us in the light breeze. The shell had cut the 
cable, a most remarkable piece of luck for the Huns 
when you consider that the range must have been at 
least eight miles. She had not gone far when two 
black dots dropped from the basket and then slowed 
up as their parachutes opened up. The observers 

* Lieut. Coppens, who later became the Belgian aoe of aces and :\t. 
the end of (ho wax had brought down aboul ;;<"> German observation 
balloons, by f:ir the largest number of balloons ever destroyed by one 
pilot. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 209 

came sailing down as their balloon went sailing away, 
getting higher and higher each minute. These captive 
balloons are equipped like free balloons with a safety- 
valve, etc., so that they can be brought quietly down 
by the observers in case they break away. These fel- 
lows evidently got frightened, however, and jumped as 
quickly as they could, without even stopping to open 
the safety valve. Naturally we don't want to lose a 
balloon with all the equipment in the basket, if it 
can be helped. A chasse machine was sent up from 
a nearby field and shot enough non-incendiary bullets 
into the gas bag to let it quietly down in our lines. 

Perhaps a minute after the observers jumped, and 
as they were coming down side by side in their para- 
chutes, the Huns took another pot at them, and the 
shell seemed to burst just between them, and very 
close; but, apparently, did no damage. It must be 
pretty poor fun to be shot at while one is hanging to 
the end of a parachute in mid-air. The observer in 
such a situation is so utterly helpless that it has always 
seemed to me poor sport to shoot at him, but it has 
long been apparent that the Huns are devoid of all 
sporting instincts. If the Boches like this sort of thing 
I suppose we might as well give them a dose of their 
own medicine, and I think that the next time I go 
ballooning I may be tempted to pot the observer on 
his parachute. However, there is no use in trying to 
cross that bridge till we come to it. 

For one thing I shall be glad to leave to-morrow 
and that is so as to get away from the night bombing. 
The Huns have not hit this hospital yet, but they 
dropped one bomb a few nights ago within a hundred 
yards of it, and broke some windows, which is quite 



210 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

close enough. This section seems to be a sort of high- 
road for them on their way to bomb other places, so 
that they are continually passing over at night and our 
"Archies" blazing away at them. One feels that they 
may let one go at any minute, and this keeps wounded 
men in a very nervous state, for they feel so helpless 
and with their wounds still fresh in their minds, they 
have no desire to collect any more or be blown to 
pieces in their beds. I do not think there is any worse 
side of the war or any dirtier trick than this bombing 
of hospitals. To illustrate the terrific power of a big 
bomb, I will tell you what happened several months 
ago in our more southern sector. One night a large 
bomb fell squarely in the centre of a main road, a road 
with a solid foundation and paved with sturdy French 
cobblestones. Shortly afterwards an ambulance came 
along in the dark and ran into the hole. This was not 
a Ford ambulance, but a big French ambulance, larger 
than an ordinary big limousine car. Standing a little 
way off up the road the ambulance was not visible at 
all, being completely below the level of the road in the 
bomb hole. This will give you some idea of its size. 
One of our cars came along a while later and helped 
rescue the wounded men from the ambulance and take 
them to a hospital. 

The other day I met the Colonel who is in charge of 
this hospital walking in one of the corridors with 
Queen Elizabeth. I saluted as I passed them and 
then the Colonel called me back and introduced me. 
The Queen had evidently been surprised to see an 
American there and wanted to know what was the 
matter. She is most attractive and was very kind 
and considerate. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYETTE 211 

Next day I was standing in front of the hospital 
with a couple of British officers I know, when who 
should come up but the Prince of Teck, the brother 
of Queen Mary of England. He is a Brig. -General in 
the English army. He stopped and chatted for about 
five minutes and wanted to know what had happened 
to me. Now, of course, I do not mean to boast by 
telling you all this; but I just want you to realize the 
kind of a fellow I am, and appreciate the society in 
which I move. When I come home I don't know 
whether I shall be able to bring myself to associate 
with you ordinary folks or not ! ! 

But "sans blag" I did stop and talk with the Queen 
for about five minutes, or rather she stopped and 
talked with me. She started right off in English, so I 
did not have a chance to air my French on her. For 
future reference I might say that it is technique or 
etiquette or whatever you call it, when one is passing 
the time of day with royalty, to allow them to start 
the conversation. I spoke of having seen her last 
summer when she came with the King to Groupe 12, to 
confer decorations; but I don't think she understood 
me very well, for she looked at me in a blank sort of 
way, as if she thought my wound had affected my 
brain. I did not see the King this time. Both he and 
the Queen seem to keep very busy, and do a great deal 
of good ; they tell me the latter sometimes assists as a 
nurse in the operating room, and I know she goes very 
frequently to the hospitals. 

There are a couple of English officers here in the 
hospital, one of them an observer of a British two- 
seater, who was shot in the leg a week ago while flying 
over Zeebrugge, taking pictures of the blocking ships 



212 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

sunk there. He did not have the lurk I did, for the 
explosive bullet caught him above the ankle and ex- 
ploded, almost tearing his leg off* He said he looked 
down and saw his foot turned around backwards, and 
then doubled up his knee to try and slop some of the 
bleeding. Fortunately his pilot was not hit, so was 
able to bring him right back and landed on the beach 
in front of the hospital. They had his leg off in half 

an hour after he landed. This boy's spirit is something 
Wonderful, and you would think he had lost 8 ten cent 
piece instead oi his right leg about six inches below 
the knee. He seems about twenty years old, and is a 
very attractive fellow, lie is. 1 think, the most cheer- 
ful man in the ward, ami to hear him talk he seems to 
be looking forward with great amusement {o trying to 
learn io walk properly with an artificial leg. lie is 
keen to get a Belgian leg. as he hears they are lighter 
and much better than any of the others, and with this 
he says lie thinks he can do about everything, except 
that he has his doubts about being able to dance. 
Even this man with his leg just off and not sewed up 
yet. is made to exercise his knee and hip-joints six 
times a day. so as not to have his muscles stiffen up. 
It is wonderful what this exercising seems to do. As 
you may imagine, however, it is rather heroic treat- 
ment, not only during the actual exercising but after- 
wards, for the movement starts all the cut muscles to 
aching, and it takes then quite a while to quiet down, 
just about in time for the next exercise. This English- 
man had received a release to go back to England and 
finish his course in medicine, the same day he was 
hurt, but refused it. 



ESCADRILLE LAFAYET] E 213 

60 Rui Bifsiiro, Pahs, June 17, 1018. 
T finally got out of the hospital on the L2th, and 
after getting decorated (some hero, eh what? ifahl 
Hall) went back to the squadron. That evening a 
patrol was going out bo I borrowed a machine and 
went along to sen If the linns wnrn still there. There 
whs /iot ;t great deal g'>ing on. I was not leading the 
patrol, but was bringing up the rear as an extra man, 
for I was feeling a bit seedy still and did not want to 

have to stay through the whole patrol if I did not feel 

like it. Saw one chance to jump three Hun single- 
seaters but waited for a EQinute to let the leader of 
OUT patrol Start things; he evidently did not see them, 

and then it was too late. V/e make it a hard and fa t 

rule that other members of a patrol shall let the 

leader start a fight in his own way; for if two or three 
try to start it, each according to his own ideas, every- 
thing gets balled up. A little later I saw what J took 
to he a Hun two-seater and thought I might he ahle 
to take it out on him for what one of his pal I did to 

me on May loth. Was behind the patrol by my elf 

at lh': time so did not have to bother about the leader. 
Started to dive down after him and got myself all 
"hot up" over the prospect, only to diseover when I 
got nearer that he, was an Englishman. 
1 felt a little queer and out of practice on the lines. 

After laying off for a month J think it takes a, couple 
of flights to get one's hand in again. In climbing into 

the machine 1 strained my knee a little, and when 1 
came back it had swelled up com Lderably, so I thought 
I had better go easy for a while, as I have no de Ire 

to spend any more time in the hospital. T therefore 

packed up and eame to Paris the next 'lay, bringing 



214 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

all my things with me, as I am not going back to the 
Lafayette. I was to go out as C. 0. of a now squadron, 
but upon arriving here found that they had not boon 
able to wait until I was in shape for active duty, so 
had given it to another man. I believe I am down to 
take the next squadron formed, and had expected to 
go back to the Lafayette again the end of this week 
and fly with them until further orders came. How- 
ever, orders came this morning, relieving me from duty 
with the Lafayette and directing me to report to Head- 
quarters in a few days. I shall therefore leave Paris 
the end of this week, and will let you know when I 
find out what I am to be given to do. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 




IH^K 



" Death the Great Reaper " 

The insignia of 13th Aero Squadron, A. E. F. 
Copied from author's plane. Nicks in the blade 
of the scythe indicate individual pilots' victo- 
ries; gravestones show combined victories of 
the squadron up to October 22, 1918, when the 
author left it. 



Paris, June 22nd, 1918. 

Just a line as I am in rather a rush and have not got 
a great deal of news for you anyhow, Paris being a 
much less fertile place for news than the front. 

I have been made Commanding Officer of the 13th 
Aero Sqdn., a new chasse squadron being formed. Am 
lucky in being equipped with French Spads, the ma- 
chine which I have always flown at the front, and 
which I prefer to all others. The machines are of the 
latest type, carrying two machine guns, and should be 
very good if we have any luck with the motors and I 
can get some first-class mechanics. Have been rush- 
ing around here in Paris for the past few days finding 
out about my squadron equipment. Have most of the 
machines already and am going to a field near Paris 
this afternoon to try out a couple of them. The bodies 
of the machines are very strongly built and I have 
been to the factory, where I went over with the build- 
ers some weak points which had gradually developed 
at the front. I was much encouraged to find that 
they knew of all these faults and had corrected them 
by reinforcing and changing the construction. I don't 
want to have any of my men losing his wings nor, in 
fact, would I care to lose my own. These planes are, 
I think, the strongest chasse machines made, and it is 
a great comfort to a pilot to feel that he has this extra 
strength in his machine in case he gets in a tight place 
and has to put his plane to unusual strains. 

To-morrow I go to headquarters near the American 
front to see about my personnel and pilots and shall 

217 



218 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

then probably return to Paris within a week to see 
further about equipment. I am very glad to get this 
squadron, as it will be fun getting it organized and 
then later on trying out at the front my ideas of the 
best chasse methods. There is much organization 
work to be done, however, and I shall consider myself 
lucky if I can have the men flying on the lines a month 
from now. You see, therefore, that I shall be out of 
active flying for a month and by that time should be 
in perfect condition for anything. Indeed, I have 
been getting along so well that I am in good condition 
now. My knee is still a little weak if I should try to 
run, for instance, but beyond that I hardly notice it. 



Paris, June 30, 1018. 
Since last writing you I have been out to the Ameri- 
can front*, where we shall soon be flying, and am now 
in Paris again, making final arrangements about the 
machines, equipment, and pilots for my squadron. I 
flew down last Sunday and it is a long trip, as far as 

the old journey from Paris to Dunkirk. M has 

been assigned to my squadron and will be one of the 
flight commanders. I am getting two other men who 
have had some experience at the front, to act as the 
other two flight commanders. Three experienced men 
is the least number one can get along with in a squad- 
ron. This makes fifteen perfectly green men in the 
squadron; but we must do this, having so few experi- 
enced pilots. I intend to bend all my energies at first 
to keeping these fellows from going too strong and get- 
ting themselves killed before they know enoughjx) be 

* Region of Toul. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 219 

able to protect themselves. I don't care if the squad- 
ron does not bring down many Huns for the first month 
or two, if the pilots can keep out of serious trouble 
and learn the game. If they can do this, I think they 
will in the end accomplish much more. Am glad to 
say that our sector is a fairly quiet one, and thus a 
very favorable place to train new men. 

As to the question of my coming home, I am afraid 
that is impossible, for several reasons. I read carefully 
what you said about it, but you are wrong on some of 
your information. The French do not take their men 
away from the front after six months; and, in fact, a 
pilot's greatest efficiency is not reached until he has 
been there longer than that, for he really cannot learn 
the game in less than six months at the front. There 
have been one or two remarkable exceptions, perhaps; 
but I think it usually takes considerably more than 
six months. Take some of the great French pilots as 
an example of service at the front: Guynemer was 
there two and a half years; Fonck has been at it for 
more than two years and so has Deullin, and I could 
mention many others. 

Totjl, July 26, 1918. 
It is not long after daylight and I am sitting on the 
flying field in my combination waiting for a telephone 
call notifying us that some Fritzie has ventured across 
the lines, and needs attention. As a rule the C. 0. 
escapes this rather tiresome business, which is taken 
care of by the other members of the squadron, but 
being short of experienced pilots, I am for the present 
myself acting as a flight commander until one of the 
other men has had sufficient experience to relieve me. 



220 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Don't like the idea of a lot of green pilots flying on the 
lines without an old pilot to lead them. 

We have not had much excitement as yet. The 
second day of active work on the lines one of my 
patrols ran onto a lone two-seater, got some shots at 
him, and he was officially confirmed as down before 
they got back to the field. Unfortunately for us, how- 
ever, further reports came in a couple of days later 
that he had not gone down at all but had pulled up, 
after falling in a vrille to within a couple of hundred 
metres of the ground. His spin was just the old trick 
to escape, and after the patrol passed on he came back 
on the lines again, so that washed out that Boche. 

The next day I was myself leading a patrol and 
spotted a single two-seater under us just over the lines. 
I attacked and one of the other men with me. Fired a 
hundred rounds at less than 100 yards range and the 
Hun went off smoking like a Christmas pudding from 
the place where his gas tank should be and I thought 
he was going to take fire. He did not, however, but 
pulled up close to the ground and then was seen to 
land in a field behind his own fines. This was the 
first fight I had had since being wounded, and found 
myself very rusty, after my two months' lay-off. The 
Hun manoeuvred well and I had considerable difficulty 
keeping myself covered by his tail, but should cer- 
tainly have had him at that. I had not been able to 
get the necessary fittings for my own sight, so had 
nothing but an emergency sight to which I am not 
accustomed, and of which I had had to leave the regu- 
lation to the armorers, owing to many other things 
keeping me busy. I had trouble in lining these sights 
up and was much slower in shooting than I should 
have been. Once when I thought I did have it on him 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 221 

I noticed my tracer bullets going over the Hun's head. 
Upon returning to the field I tested my guns and 
sights on the target and found them to be six feet out. 
Moral — never let any one else regulate your sights, a 
moral which I already fully appreciated and have 
always followed and shall certainly never stray from 
again. Have not had another shot since, as we have 
been having some bad, windy weather, but this cannot 
last and I am hoping soon to get even for my experi- 
ence of May 15th. 

The squadron is coming along pretty well, and I now 
have my full quota of pilots, and we are making regular 
patrols. In the fight the other day when I did not get 
that two-seater, two of the new men got separated from 
the patrol and lost themselves, finally landing far to 
the South. This in spite of all my talking about the 
importance of studying the map, and that before allow- 
ing any new pilot to go on the lines, we have taken 
them around the whole sector a couple of times, well 
behind the lines, so that they could get their bearings. 
They finally got back all right without breaking any- 
thing, and I have now instituted a class in the geogra- 
phy of the sector for them and another man, who got 
lost and broke his machine in landing. Have told 
them that they don't fly until they can pass my exami- 
nation — one of them flunked last night. Am doing 
the same thing for all new pilots coming to the squad- 
ron. This business of getting lost and having forced 
landings in consequence, is too expensive both in pilots 
and machines and is usually the result of pure careless- 
ness or boneheadedness. The men are all anxious to 
fly, so I think they will soon learn their lesson in 
geography. 

The new American pilots coming to the front are 



222 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

very encouraging, for they are as a whole a very nice 
lot of boys, keen, and anxious to get some Huns. 
There are, of course, some mediocre specimens, but 
they are the exception and the average is much better 
than among the French pilots with whom I trained, 
both in skill and morale. I do not mean this at all as 
a criticism of the French, for a comparison of our men 
when we are just entering the war, and still have all 
our best to draw upon, with the French material after 
four years of war, when the majority of their best 
young men have been killed, would be distinctly unfair. 
The trouble is to keep our men from going too strong 
at first and getting themselves into trouble before 
they have had sufficient experience to be able to pro- 
tect themselves. You will be glad to hear that we are 
insisting on team work and the patrols sticking to- 
gether, and are discouraging the great tendency for 
one man to try to dash off by himself and be a hero at 
the expense of the whole. Any man who leaves a 
patrol for such a purpose will be put on the ground 
for a couple of weeks and confined to camp, and if he 
repeats the performance I shall send him to the rear. 
I think the sticking together plan will give better 
results in the long run and certainly less losses, and 
after all this is the combination that we are after. 

I had a thrill a couple of weeks ago when I sent a 
new man up for his first ride in a Spad. In getting off 
the field, which is rather rough, he bumped a bit and 
bent an axle so that the wheel was at an angle of about 
45 degrees, with the axle almost touching the ground. 
I knew that if he bounced at all when he landed the 
wheel would probably snap off or that the axle would 
at least catch in the ground and throw the machine 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 223 

over. As it was his first trip he would probably land 
fast so as to be sure not to lose his speed too soon, and 
I had visions of seeing him turn over at sixty miles an 
hour. I said good-by to that new machine and only 
hoped that the pilot would not be killed or seriously 
injured. There is almost nothing one can do to pre- 
vent such an accident once a machine gets up with a 
bad wheel, except stand on the side lines and hope for 
the best. While this man was flying around the field 
I sent a man out with a spare wheel to wave it at him 
in the hope that he would catch on to the fact that 
there was something wrong with his wheel and land as 
slowly as possible. Also sent for the doctor and the 
ambulance, got a stretcher ready and had men out on 
the field with fire extinguishers. A cold-blooded per- 
formance, perhaps, but I thought we might as well be 
ready for anything. 

Luck was with us, however, and the pilot as he 
passed over the field saw the man waving the spare 
wheel and realized for the first time that something 
must be wrong. When flying *your lower wings pre- 
vent you from seeing any part of the landing carriage. 
I held my breath when the plane came down to land 
but if the pilot had been flying for five years and had 
tried a thousand times he could not have made a softer 
landing. The bad axle held and the plane rolled along 
and stopped as though there was nothing at all the 
matter. 

Toul, August 6th, 1918. 
Here I have gone and let my letter-writing interval 
increase to ten days again, but without making too 
many excuses I do seem to have very little time to 



224 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

myself. What with trying to instruct these new men 
and also run the squadron, keep the planes in condi- 
tion, etc., time does not hang at all heavily on my 
hands. 

Have had a few scraps since last writing and, as I 
wrote you, I at first found myself rather rusty, but did 
better in the last one. One fight with a two-seater on 
July 31st resulted in some long-range shooting, but he 
was too far in his own lines, and saw me too soon, to 
allow me to get to close quarters, so nothing happened. 

On the morning of the first I had two of my new men 
out, and we ran across four Fokker bi-planes. They 
are a new Hun single-seater chasse machine. We had 
the altitude and I put my patrol in the sun in the 
hope of being able to surprise them, but they saw us 
before we got within shooting distance. I tackled one 
and one of the new men another, while the third man 
of my patrol stayed up to protect the rear according 
to orders. I fired at rather long range and did not go 
in very close, for I caught sight of my companion chas- 
ing one Boche down below the others, forgetting en- 
tirely in his zeal that it is a good idea to watch one's 
tail. I accordingly laid off to try and watch him, but 
finally ended in losing sight of him in the heavy mist, 
and by that time it was too late to continue after the 
other Huns. I think they must have been a green 
bunch like ourselves, for they manoeuvred badly and 
one of them dove madly for home the instant he saw 
us, as though he was scared to death. I did catch 
sight of one of them going down for a thousand metres 
in a vertical nose dive. The boy who followed the 
Hun down too low got some good close shots at him 
and was not bothered by the others, who were evi- 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 225 

dently afraid to follow him with the other man and 
myself still above them. The infantry reported the 
fight and said that two of the Huns were still going 
down vertically on their noses at 500 metres from the 
ground when they lost sight of them in the mist. As 
the fight took place at 4,000 metres I think those Huns 
must have at least been a bit scared, for a man does 
not dive 3,500 metres on his nose for the fun of the 
thing. It was impossible to see, however, whether or 
not they crashed, and on account of the mist and our 
being three or four miles in the Boche lines no confirma- 
tion could be obtained. 

In the afternoon I was out again, this time with 
three of the new men. We were at 5,000 metres and 
had gone into the Hun lines to escort some of our big- 
ger planes home from a long-distance day-bombing ex- 
pedition. Nothing happened but a lot of "Archies," 
and we had just left the big machines after bringing 
them back into our lines, when I spotted three little 
black specks in the distance far within the Boche ter- 
ritory. They had evidently been following our bomb- 
ers. I never thought we could catch them and they 
were too far in to pick a fight, which would be the first 
any of my patrol had ever had. I followed them any- 
how to see where they would go and we chased along 
far behind them with the sun directly in our backs. We 
must have been fifteen kilometres over the lines where 
the Huns were not expecting trouble and with the sun 
behind us they never noticed us at all. This business 
of flying far in the enemy territory would be dangerous 
for new men in a sector like Flanders and would not 
pay, but in this quiet sector if one has sufficient alti- 
tude it is safe enough. As you know, my motto is 



226 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

" safety first," particularly with the new men. After 
we had followed these Huns east for a couple of min- 
utes they turned south towards the lines and I turned 
after them, trying always to keep the patrol directly 
between them and the sun. Diving slightly and with 
our motors almost wide open we overhauled them 
rapidly and by the time they reached their own lines 
we were only about 500 yards behind and above them. 

Up to this time they evidently had not seen us, for 
they naturally expected trouble least of all from be- 
hind them in their own lines, and a machine behind 
you and above and in the sun is the hardest of all to 
see. Suddenly they saw us, each Hun did a renverse- 
meiit, and all three dove under us back into their own 
territory. I dove on one and gave him a burst as he 
passed under me, which apparently came very close, 
then did a renversement and dropped on the tail of an- 
other. Then my old machine gun hoodoo started 
again. The first guns which I had on my new ma- 
chine loaded with ordinary bullets had worked beauti- 
fully, but I had been hoping to get a balloon so had 
mounted an extra size balloon gun on one side and 
filled the other gun with nothing but incendiary am- 
munition, not so reliable a combination, but the only 
thing for balloons, as ordinary armor-piercing and 
tracer ammunition will not set them on fire. 

These Bodies were Albatross single-seater chasse 
planes and certainly were a good-looking lot with their 
greenish camouflaged wings and tails, and bodies made 
of bright yellow laminated wood. I fired a few more 
shots and then just as we had succeeded in separating 
one Hun from his companions and turning him to one 
side, I got the best chance that I have had since com- 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 227 

ing to the front. One of my patrol had also fired at a 
couple of the Huns and had had machine-gun trouble, 
and I saw him flying along beside a Bochc not thirty 
metres from him, just as if they were doing a friendly 
patrol together. Each was making little nervous 
movements, as though he did not know exactly what 
to do, and I learned later that my man had been try- 
ing to fix his guns. The Boche was evidently busy 
watching him and did not notice me as I slipped up 
behind him, and I made up my mind that this time I 
would take my time and make sure of him. Got within 
about forty yards and laid my sights very carefully in 
the middle of the pilot's back, pressed both triggers 
and not a single shot did I get out of either gun. One 
gun had stopped just as I stopped shooting the time 
before, so that I did not notice it, and I thought I 
had cleared the stoppage in the other. Don't think I 
have ever been much madder or more disappointed, 
and as on a former occasion, I guess I said some things 
Mother never taught me in Sunday-school. I was so 
close to that Hun that it seemed as if one might almost 
bring him down with a brick. 

I started in to try to fix my guns for another shot 
and was behind the Boche and within easy range of 
him for at least a half minute while I worked with 
them. One gun was beyond repair as the band of 
cartridges had broken, but I managed to get the other 
one going again. It had not been working well, shoot- 
ing only half a dozen shots and then stopping, so I 
tried to get very close and make my shots count. 
Twice I came down on his tail and gave it to him at 
forty or fifty yards, getting a few shots out of my gun 
each time, the Boche at the same time doing a ren- 



228 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

versement. Once I had to pull to one side to prevent 
running into him, and several times I saw my incen- 
diary bullets go into his machine. It is a wonder he 
did not take fire. Each time I looked above and be- 
hind me I saw my Spads circling overhead, so I decided 
to try to stick to my friend until I got him. Once he 
fell several hundred yards apparently out of control 
and I thought I had him, but he went into a spiral 
again, as though he had regained control of his ma- 
chine, so I kept after him and managed to clear the 
stoppage in my gun for, I think, the fourth time. 
The Boche kept spiralling down and I after him, really 
too close, for I could not bring my gun to bear. We 
kept this up while we went down a thousand metres 
or more. Finally I let him get a little further away 
and was then able to drop on his tail again. Just as I 
was firing at him for the last time there came the 
"clack, clack, clack" of machine guns close at hand 
and I felt several bullets hit my machine. Looking up 
I discovered another Hun who had come down behind 
my left wing to within forty metres without my ever 
seeing him. He had a hard right-angle shot but did 
pretty well at that, putting two bullets through one of 
my wings, one of which split an interplane strut and 
half severed a control, and two others through the 
body of my machine a little behind my seat. They 
did no damage, however, beyond necessitating putting 
on a new wing before I could fly my plane again. I 
ducked so quickly that I fell into a vrille, but came 
out after making one turn, as I had no desire to get 
both Huns over my head. I dodged around for per- 
haps half a minute, all three of us within 100 metres, 
fixed my gun again and thought that if I could get a 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 229 

good shot at one of them and put him out of business 
or scare him off, I could then have an even thing of it 
with the other or get away if necessary. One's natural 
tendency to dive straight for home in such a situation 
is about the worst thing one could do, as it gives the 
other man just the chance he wants, that is, to dive 
directly behind and rake you in a straightaway shot. 
I manoeuvred with these Huns to keep out of their 
line of fire and succeeded in doing so as the one I had 
been attacking was too sick to have much fight left in 
him. Then as I watched the Hun behind me, a third 
appeared diving down on my back, and I thought the 
only thing to do was to get out and run for home, as I 
do not fancy mixing it up with three of them low down 
and considerably in their own lines, when two out of 
the three have the jump on you. The Boche below 
and in front of me was in no position to shoot, so I did 
a renversement and dove under the two who were 
coming down from the rear, having first succeeded in 
getting a lucky burst into one of them, then as they 
passed over my head and lost me for an instant under 
their wings, did another renversement so as to head for 
home, and dove for our lines with my motor wide open. 
By the time the Huns located me again I had a 
head start of three hundred yards and no Boche ma- 
chine can catch one such as those we have when div- 
ing slightly with the motor wide open. One of them 
did some long-range shooting but came nowhere near 
me and I came home flying in zigzags with all the 
speed I could muster. That is the first time I have ever 
been caught by surprise and I hope the last. Don't 
imagine it happened because I am not in good condi- 
tion or anything like that, as I was never more wide- 



230 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

awake. It was simply a case of being interested in 
the Boche in front of me and relying too much upon 
the rest of my patrol. They did their best and are 
very good men, but it is extremely difficult for a new 
man to follow a fast fight going on below him, espe- 
cially if the planes are diving at high speed as I and 
that Boche were. The show started at 5,000 metres 
and I ended up at 2,000; the rest of my patrol lost 
track of me during the fight and I never saw them 
again until we got back to our field. Then, again, the 
Hun who surprised me came down just behind one of 
my wings, where I could not see him. It is fine to 
surprise the other fellow, but no fun at all when you 
are the one caught napping. At first I thought the 
two who attacked me when I was after the third Hun 
were the same that we had at first attacked, but from 
later developments it seems that they may have been 
two others. I was so busy getting away at the end 
of the fight that I had no time to see what happened 
to the Huns, and reported on coming back that I could 
not tell whether any of them went down or not. Next 
day in comes a report from an observation post that 
two of them crashed and both have been officially con- 
firmed. 

You asked me in your last letter how many I now 
have officially. This makes only four, as I have not 
had one confirmed since April 12, in spite of a number 
of fights and one machine gunner of a two-seater that 
I shot the same day I was brought down. Was begin- 
ning to think I had forgotten how to shoot entirely, 
but getting these two makes me feel much better about 
being myself shot up by them, and also about May 
15th. The other members of our patrol who took an 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 231 

active part in the fight will share in the confirmations, 
it being impossible to be sure who fired the shots 
which brought these Huns down. I was very glad, as 
you may imagine, to have had a hand in getting the 
squadron's first two official Huns. 

Toul, August 7th, 1918. 
I think the Boche aviation in this sector had a right 
lively day on August 1st. In the morning, just after 
my patrol had attacked the four Fokkers, the two 
that we did not shoot at ran into another patrol from 
one of the other squadrons in the group. This other 

patrol was led by a very good pilot named E with 

whom I used to be in the Lafayette. On this oc- 
casion he had two green men with him and he chased 
those two Huns almost to their own field, twenty-five 
kilometres behind the Boche lines. When he got back 
there he saw a Hun two-seater flying around at COO 
metres near his own field, so dove down under his tail 

and gave it to him. E had too much speed as I 

did on May 15th and overshot the Boche, so he climbed 
up over him again and to his astonishment saw that 
there was no one in the machine-gunner's cockpit. 
This was almost too good to be true, so E pro- 
ceeded to sit on the Boche's tail at 30 yards' range and 
riddle him, the pilot being, of course, helpless so far as 
shooting was concerned. That poor Hun was evi- 
dently up simply trying out his motor in the security 
of his own back areas and had not bothered to take 

his gunner with him. E finally shot him at only 

150 metres' altitude and close to his own field where he 
crashed head first into the ground a complete wreck. 
In the meantime, however, one of the Fokkers had 



232 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

jumped on one of E 's companions who had become 

separated, and as the man was perfectly green and 
close to the ground miles behind the Boche lines, he 
was in a bad way. Luckily E saw his predica- 
ment, and although all his own ammunition was gone 
he dove down on the Fokker's back and scared him 
off so that the new man got away. Altogether a 
mighty fine piece of work on E 's part. 

Another patrol the same morning chased a Hun 
almost home and forced him to land in a wheatfield. 
They then proceeded to machine-gun some German 
hangars from a couple of hundred feet in broad day- 
light. Ticklish work, but it certainly does make the 
Huns nervous never to know when they are safe. 

This is about all the news I have to give you. The 
weather has been poor, so that I have only been out 
once since August 1st. Went out at daylight then 
and flew over a "coup do main" being made by the 
American troops. The clouds were very low and kept 
us down between 200 and 300 metres, so that we had 
a wonderful view of the whole show; in fact I have 
never had a better look at a battlefield under heavy 
shell fire. The area covered was very small, but it 
was lively enough while it lasted. Behind us as we 
ilew above the lines were the hundreds of brilliant 
Hashes from our own artillery and beneath us and in 
front the shells breaking continuously on the German 
trenches and back areas. Occasionally an ammunition 
dump would Hare up and a small woods seemed to be 
veritably alive with bursting shells. At our low alti- 
tude the "departs"* and " arrives "f were very loud 
and clear and we could at times hear the rattle of the 

* Discharge of a cannon. t Explosion of a shell. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 233 

machine guns on the ground. Our observation bal- 
loons were hanging just below the heavy drifting clouds 
and the whole effect in the semi-darkness of the dawn 
was indeed picturesque. We saw no enemy planes at 
all, and the only excitement consisted in being shot at 
by our own Infantry, which came about in this wise. 

The sector which we had to cover was very short, 
only four or five miles long, so that we were continu- 
ally passing backward and forward over the same 
ground. Each time we passed the point of a small 
woods, a burst of machine-gun fire on the ground was 
distinctly audible. No tracer bullets were used, so 
that it was not possible to see just what they were 
shooting at, but it sounded very much to me as though 
we were the targets. A machine gun fired up toward 
you makes a different sound from one fired along the 
ground at the enemy. We were so low, however, that 
one could hardly believe that the Infantry could fail 
to recognize us as their own planes. 

As the machine-gun fire continued to break out each 
time we flew by the little woods I became convinced 
that they were firing at us and accordingly avoided 
this particular spot. Tried my best to locate the guns 
but they were too well concealed. I was mad enough 
to dive down and give them a dose of their own medi- 
cine, which might perhaps teach them to look before 
they shoot. Our green divisions in line for the first 
time are woefully ignorant of the Air Service and one 
continually hears of the "doughboys" complaining 
that they never see any planes with stars on their 
wings. I suppose they have seen the star insignia in 
the pictures in the magazines and on the war posters 
and do not know that this insignia has never been used 



234 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

on the front. We have always used the round cocarde 
like the French and English, except for the different 
arrangement of the colors. There is nothing more 
important than a proper understanding of the avia- 
tion on the part of the ground forces and vice versa, 
and a good liaison system between the two. The 
Huns seem to be way ahead of any of the Allies on 
this and it is about time we appreciated its importance. 

Sure enough, when we returned to our field and ex- 
amined our machines, three out of the four of us who 
had been on the patrol had from two to four bullet 
holes in his wings and tail. If the machine gunners 
who fired at us had not been very poor shots they 
should have been able to bring us down, for we were 
flying back and forth only two hundred yards over 
their heads for about an hour. Later in the day a 
regular army Lieutenant-Colonel in the Air Service 
came to see me about it, saying that he had been in 
the front lines observing the attack and that the ma- 
chine guns which shot us up had been just to one side 
of him. He had sat there and watched them shoot 
because he also had thought that we were Huns. Now 
our machines do not look anything like a Hun ma- 
chine to one at all familiar with them, and one would 
think that by the time an officer had risen to the rank 
of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Air Service it would have 
crossed his mind that it might be a good idea for him 
to study his own planes sufficiently to know what they 
look like. I have since been wondering what, believ- 
ing us to be Huns, they thought our idea was in flying 
over their heads for an hour without ever attempting 
to fire a shot. 

The Air Service is unfortunately burdened with 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 235 

a few regular officers who have done very little war 
flying on the front, but who fail to appreciate their 
lack of practical experience. I admit that they have 
not had much opportunity to gain experience, and a 
West Point training will not teach a man much about 
how an air patrol on the lines should be conducted. 
What one does object to, however, is the refusal of 
some of these officers to take advice from men who 
do know the game and to learn something about it in 
this way. There is one man of whom I am thinking 
who is a most glaring example of this small-minded 
type. He has under his command several men of long 
service on the front, men with fine records who have 
had more experience in air fighting than any one in 
the American army, yet when these men attempt sug- 
gestions in a most friendly and loyal way to him as 
their commanding officer, he makes it very evident 
that their ideas are not wanted and that they are to 
understand that he and not they are running the organ- 
ization. This attitude is entirely uncalled for, as the 
suggestions are made without the slightest intimation 
of any desire on the part of those making them to 
controvert his authority or to take credit to them- 
selves for their ideas. This man also fails entirely to 
appreciate that an officer can make his subordinates 
realize that he means what he says without being un- 
necessarily disagreeable to them and thus making real 
co-operation impossible. The best officer and the one 
whose orders are never questioned is the one whose 
men love and admire him instead of fearing him. And 
the best soldiers do not really fear any officer, anyhow, 
and obey the bulldozing type only out of respect for 
his position as their commander and not from any 



236 THE WAV OF THE EAGLE 

respect or Fear of the man. My friend might do pretty 
well as the commanding officer of some unit where 
unruly soldiers were sent for disciplinary purposes, but 
as the commander of an Air Service unit on the front 
he is mighty poor. 

I do not mean this as a general criticism of the 
regular army officer in the Air Service, for there are 
some exceptionally good broad-minded men among 
them who are just the opposite of the type I have at- 
tempted to describe. 

Tovl. August 15, 101S. 
One of the patrols from the squadron which was 
out early this morning had a lively fight with four 
Fokkers and incidentally got one of them. The man 

who did most oi the work is a new pilot named D 

who had as yet had very little experience and had 
never been in a. real hot scrap before. In the light 
this morning he first drove one Fokker ofY his Bight 
commander's tail, thus extricating his companion from 
a very serious position, lie then attacked another 
Hun at long range and finally still a third, this time at 
very close quarters. This last opponent seems io have 
been a very good pilot, for as they went at each other, 

head on. he put four bullets through one of D 's 

wings, one in his radiator and another half shot away 
a strut. Then the Hun swung around behind him and 
tired a bullet through his mirror. The mirror is de- 
signed to assist in seeing behind one and in a Spad is 
only about six inches from the pilot's face. The next 
bullet cut the support o( the mirror and blew it over- 
board, while still another creased his helmet. D 

said he was scared to death, but he certainly did not 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. P. 2:;7 

let that interfere with his determination to Bee the 
show through. Willi his plane riddled, water squirt- 
ing over hi., feet from hie punctured radiator and the 
motor heating up as a result, that youngster chased 
that I fun far info his owe lines until he finally got him 
only 600 yards from the ground, and brought the 

Boche down in flumes. One could not ;i: k for a better 

exhibition of nerve and grit; you cannot realize how 
disconcerting it is to have bullets go Bmashing through 
your plane close beside you, especially to a new man. 
I know that when I first started in, I would have run 
for home under the same circumstances and would 

probably do so now. When I) landed on the field 

after the fight he was naturally a hit excited. He' 
came running over to me and Bald: "Gee, Captain I 

When that Hun broke my mirror and threw glass all 
over me, it for some reason made me so damn mad 
that I made up my mind I was going to get him ." 

And lie sure did. That hoy deserves a lot of credit 
and I shall do my hest to see that he gets it.* 

Tout., Aug. 23, 1918. 
I wish our mail came with something like regularity 
and I guess you are thinking the same thing about 
my letters if the service home is as poor as it is com- 
ing over. I get letters in a large batch about once 
every three weeks or a month and nothing at all in 
between. There is no comparison at all between our 
service and the French, but still 1 guess we have no 
eaw '• to complain if we finally get OUT letters, for it 
must he a terrific joh trying to get our men and sup- 

* D was awarded the American DiHtinguibhed Service Cross 

for (he above exploit. 



238 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

plies over. The news one gets in the papers these 
days is certainly good, and it really begins to look as 
though the Hun is pretty nearly finished as an offen- 
sive power. Is it not wonderful the way the entire 
aspect of the war has changed during the past couple 
of months? As I have so often said before, it is still 
a long way to the end, but it is a great thing to have 
it in sight. 

There is nothing much new to tell you about this 
week aside from my experience with my fifth Hun, 
about the most interesting from my point of view 
that I have yet had. The squadron is going along 
about as usual and things seem to be turning out 
fairly well. I have some very good men whom I 
think will develop into first-class Boche getters. One 
of my men has had to quit due to heart trouble, as he 
fainted one day while playing baseball and I found 
out that he had fainted once before in the air but had 

said nothing about it. I got Col. N , (an expert) 

to examine him and he said he should never fly on 
the front, so I am sending him off with a recommenda- 
tion that he be used as an instructor on the ground. 
To allow him to fly would not be fair, in my opinion, 
either to the man himself or to the men who fly with 
him and must rely upon him. The man has had the 
same trouble for years and that he was ever passed 
for the Air Sendee is remarkable. 

I will tell you something about that Rumpler two- 
seater I brought down last Friday morning, for it was 
in many ways very amusing. For about four days 
previous there had been a Hun coming over the camp 
high up every morning between 5.15 and 6 o'clock, 
evidently taking pictures and looking around to see 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 239 

what was going on behind our lines. He always got 
away safely as there was no one up there at that time 
and before any one could leave the ground and climb 
up to him he would be home again. The "Archies" used 
to wake us up shooting at him. I thought I would go 
up early and lay for him, and accordingly got myself 
out of bed at 3.30 on Friday morning and took off at 
crack of dawn about 4.45. For this sort of work I 
prefer to be alone, for one then has so much better 
chance of effecting a surprise attack and there is no 
chance of being caught unawares oneself by a bunch 
of Hun single-seaters. Climbed up to 5,600 metres 
and waited for Mr. Boche, remaining far within our 
lines so as to let him come in without scaring him off. 
I hung around for about an hour without seeing a 
thing and was beginning to cuss my luck for having 
picked the one morning when the Boche would not 
come over, when I saw far in the distance toward the 
lines the white puffs from our "Archie" shells. Then I 
made out the Hun among them, a tiny black speck on 
the horizon. 

As soon as I saw him I turned around and flew off in 
the other direction, so as to get out of his way and let 
him come in, and also so as to put myself in the sun 
where he could not see me. I waited five or ten min- 
utes while he kept sailing along into our lines, all the 
while gradually approaching him so that the sun was 
in his eyes. Finally he began to turn as though he 
thought he had gone far enough so I went after him, 
but his position was such that I could not keep my 
place in the sun while attacking him and he saw me 
before I got very close. He was only about 4,500 
metres up, so by diving I overhauled him very quickly 



240 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

and went down under his tail with all the speed I 
could muster. The pilot manoeuvred very well and I 
had a hard time to keep myself covered, but managed 
to get in close and gave him a burst until I had to turn 
away to keep from running into him. The pilot told 
me afterward that he heard the observer yell when I 
shot so I suppose I must have hit him. The machine 
appeared hard hit and for a minute I thought he was 
going down, so laid off and waited to see what would 
happen, as we were so far within our lines that I had 
ample time for another attack if necessary. We flew 
along for a minute or two, the observer firing a few 
scattered shots at long range, and then the pilot started 
for his own lines again. I went after him once more 
and coming up under his tail gave him a good burst 
at short range; when I stopped shooting I suppose 
we were ten or fifteen yards apart. This time I did 
better, for I got the observer in the stomach, shot the 
band of cartridges on his gun so it would not work, 
shot the synchronizing gear on the pilot's gun so that 
it was out of commission, and another bullet stopped 
the motor. I pulled away when I got too close and 
watched again to see what would happen, but even 
then the pilot tried to plane back to his own lines. 
The observer had stopped shooting and I noticed his 
gun sticking straight up in the air, so thought he must 
be knocked out. There was lots of time and I climbed 
up over the Hun where I could look down in the ob- 
server's cockpit. There seemed to be no one there so 
I went down and gave him another dose, this time get- 
ting the pilot in the shoulder. By this time we were 
down to 2,000 metres and the pilot seeing that he could 
not possibly get back to his own lines, gave up and 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 241 

planed back into ours. I sat on his tail a couple of 
hundred yards away and watched him, for although it 
would have been an easy matter to have gone in and 
shot down the now defenseless Hun, it did not seem 
worth while when it was quite evident that he could 
not possibly escape. I thought at the time that it 
would be much nicer to get the machine intact if pos- 
sible rather than simply a wreck. 

We were right beside a river* which ran down a 
little valley with quite high hills on either side. By 
the river was a broad green field, smooth as a prepared 
golf course, and the Boche made for this. He just 
missed some telegraph wires and then made an abso- 
lutely perfect landing without so much as a bounce. 
I was afraid he would try to set his machine on fire or 
run away, so kept circling over his head, prepared to 
give it to him if he tried any tricks. For several min- 
utes no one got out of the machine, and I thought 
both men must be knocked out, but pretty soon the 
pilot jumped down and I saw him standing by the tail 
of his machine. It seemed perfect ages before any 
one came, and I fired my guns once or twice to attract 
attention. Finally I saw some French soldiers run- 
ning to the plane, and then a crowd quickly began to 
gather around it. I went down and landed a few hun- 
dred yards away and then turned and rolled back on 
the ground. Just before I got to the Boche plane there 
was a stone sticking up out of the ground about eight 
inches, grown over with grass, which I failed to notice, 
and I think it was almost the only stone in the whole 
field. Anyhow I hit it and caved in one of my wheels, 
which allowed a wing to touch the ground and snapped 
* The Moselle. 



242 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

off several ribs. This was a bit disgusting, but I 
wanted to see that Boche, so stopped my motor and 
hopped out. 

A great crowd of soldiers and civilians came dashing 
across the field and in the centre, between a couple of 
gendarmes, was the Boche pilot. He was a little short 
stocky fellow and had his coat off, with some blood 
soaking through his shirt. Surrounded as he was by 
a crowd of Frenchmen who looked none too friendly, 
but rather as though they would like to string him up, 
and rather pale from the scare he had just had, he was 
looking pretty miserable and downhearted. I could 
not help feeling sorry for him, so smiled and held out 
my hand. He just beamed all over and shook hands 
with a will. Tried both French and English on him, 
but it was no go. as he could not understand any bet- 
ter than I could his German. "Nicht gobble-gobble" 
said he. or something that sounded like it, but the 
"nicht" was the only word I could make out. Then 
the gendarmes took him off to get his wound dressed 
and lock him up. The wound was a mere scratch and 
did not penetrate more than half an inch. 

By this time people had begun to come from every- 
where and the place looked like the exit from a foot- 
ball game, the crowd was so large. I walked over to 
the German machine and they had just taken the ob- 
server out of his cockpit and laid him on the ground. 
Some of the Frenchmen told me he was dying, and he 
breathed his last just as I walked up. He was a tine 
big strapping fellow, twenty-one years old. and looked 
like a gentleman. It gave me a queer feeling to stand 
there and look at that dead boy whom I had never seen 
before, stretched out with two or three of my bullets 




I a 






13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 243 

through his stomach, his fast-glazing eyes staring wide 
open and that nasty yellow look just coming over his 
face. It is nice to get them down on our side of the 
lines where one can get the machine, but on the other 
hand, even though you know perfectly well that you 
have killed a man, it seems less personal if you do not 
see him. They are Huns and I will without hesitation 
kill as many as I can, for it has to be done, but, just 
the same, they are human beings, and one cannot help 
remembering that they have a mother somewhere who 
will be wondering what has happened to them. I 
have got a little parachute to which I am attaching a 
note giving the names of the men and a short state- 
ment of what happened to them, and this I shall drop 
over the German lines the first clear day. Lieut. 
Putnam brought down another two-seater in our lines 
a couple of days ago, and we are going to combine on 
the note. His machine came down in flames, however, 
so that there was almost nothing left but the motor, 
but by giving them the motor number they will, of 
course, know who the men were. The Hun aviation 
in this sector is very good about doing the same thing 
and sending us information about any of our men who 
are lost, so the least we can do is to reciprocate. 

As I was standing there a gendarme went through 
the dead observer's pockets but did not find much 
except a pair of eye-glasses and a half-empty flask of 
whiskey. The former he gave to me and I have them. 
Inside the case was the man's name, "Lt. Groschel." 
The pilot's name was Johann Eichner and I enclose 
his card. Please keep it as a souvenir. The long 
word under his name is not an address but is the Ger- 
man for "Air pilot." 



244 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

The Hun machine was absolutely intact except for 
about thirty bullet holes in various parts of its anatomy, 
which did not at all spoil its appearance, but made it 
unfit for flying. He had quite a few holes in his wings, 
a sign of inaccurate shooting, but once when I was 
very close to him he turned and dove quickly and I 
got into the back wash from his propeller. This threw 
my machine about, and as I had both guns going at 
the time I sprayed bullets all over the sky. The pic- 
tures which I am enclosing will give you a much better 
idea of a Boche two-seater than anything I could write. 

Toul, Sept. 1, 1918. 

I am writing twice in succession to you, as this let- 
ter is more or less of a continuation of my last, so 
please explain to Mother and tell her not to get jealous. 

To take up the thread of my letter of last week 
about where I left off, after looking the Boche plane 
over and getting the gendarmes to put a guard on both 
it and my own so that the crowd would not tear them 
to pieces for souvenirs, I walked up to a nearby vil- 
lage* to telephone to the squadron. Finally got them 
and told them to send over some mechanics with a 
truck and trailer, so as to repair my machine and also 
take the Boche machine apart and cart it back to 
camp. After telephoning I went with a friendly gen- 
darme to the house of one of his friends, and they pro- 
vided me with some very welcome coffee and cheese 
and crackers, for I was beginning to feel a bit empty 
after my early start. While I was getting this break- 
fast, a very pretty little daughter of the house, aged 
about six, came shyly in, holding to her mother's 
* Bouxieres-aux-Dames, about five miles north of Nancy. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 245 

skirts, and presented me with a beautiful little bouquet 
of fresh roses which she had just picked for me. The 
roses were set off by sprigs of some other sort of a 
flower with which I am not familiar. I enclose a bit 
of it for Mother's benefit. So you see I still get along 
all right with the children, and also with the old folks, 
as will appear later on in this story. 

After breakfasting I walked back with my gendarme 
friend to the field where the planes were, and you 
never saw such a crowd in your life. Pretty soon the 
major who commands the group arrived and then a 
number of pilots from the squadron, together with 
mechanics. Then a French general put in an appear- 
ance and made me stand up in front of the Boche 
plane with my flowers in my hand while he took my 
picture. I felt awfully foolish during this procedure 
with about three. thousand people looking on, but you 
will see from the enclosed photo what a sweet and 
girlish smile I managed to assume. Don't you think 
it goes well with the flowers? I was going to put the 
flowers out of sight somewhere, but suddenly remem- 
bered that the little girl had come down to the field 
with her mother and was standing there in the crowd 
looking at me, so I was afraid it might hurt her feel- 
ings if I did not keep the flowers. I therefore stood 
there with my posies like some June bride, looking as 
self-conscious as I felt. 

It was fortunate that the general was there, how- 
ever, for the gendarmes had orders not to allow any 
picture-taking, but the general changed all that and 
one of my sergeants got a lot of good ones. 

After my mechanics had put a new wheel on my 
machine and repaired the broken wing-tip, I flew back 



246 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

to our field, leaving them to take the Rumpler to pieces 
and load it on the trailer. This they did, and the 
whole kaboodle reached camp that afternoon. I think 
the crew of my plane had the time of their lives that 
day. On the way back to camp they had to pass 
through a very large town* and the sergeant in charge 
of my crew sat up in the cockpit of the German ma- 
chine and rode through the streets as though he were 
Napoleon himself. Then after we had removed some 
things from the plane here at camp, the colonel in 
command of the "Wing" ordered it set up on exhibi- 
tion in the public square of a nearby town.f My crew 
again did the work and seemed to enjoy it immensely. 
We got all kinds of souvenirs from that Boche, and 
one of the enclosed pictures shows my photographer- 
sergeant sitting among some of them. The camera 
was a beauty with large Zeiss lenses of the finest grade. 

I wanted very much to keep it for Uncle J , as he 

could have gotten splendid pictures with it. These 
lenses are too expensive for most private individuals 
to buy. It so happens, however, that such lenses are 
needed in our own service, for the Germans can make 
better ones than any of the Allies. I therefore had to 
turn the camera over to our technical department, 
but hope some day to get it back. At the extreme left 
of the same picture is the Hun observer's map, the 
dark line on it being some of his gore. The map I 
turned over to the intelligence department, but expect 
to get it back before long. All the other things in the 
picture I am keeping in addition to a couple of splen- 
did undamaged machine guns and a lot of Boche am- 
munition. A few days ago the enlisted men of the 

* Nancy. a Toul. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 247 

squadron presented me with a very handsome cane 
made from the laminated wood of the German pro- 
peller, and beautifully inlaid with pieces of the brasa 
gasoline tank. Of all the souvenirs, however, I think 
the pictures are probably the best. 

The next day Major D and I, together with a 

pilot from one of the squadrons who spoke German, 
went to the headquarters of the French Army in this 
sector to see the German pilot. He seemed all right 
and had his coat on over his wounded arm, so that 
you would never have known he had been touched. 
Through an interpreter we had a long talk with him; 
he was very communicative and told us many things 
that we wanted to know. He seemed thankful to have 
escaped with his life and was anxious to answer my 
questions, for I think he realized that after I had 
knocked out his observer I could have killed him if I 
had wanted to. 

He even went so far as to tell us the unit to which 
he belonged, the number of machines in his squadron, 
and to show us on the map the location of his aero- 
drome. He may, of course, have been lying about 
these, particularly the latter, for no man with any 
sand at all would give away the position of his field. 
In all the other answers he gave, however, I think he 
was sincere, for his responses were much too promptly 
and freely given to have been false, and he did not 
speak at all like a man who was lying. He was not an 
officer, but he was by no means stupid, quite the con- 
trary, but even so I don't think he was clever enough 
to make up all the things he told us. One thing he 
wanted to know was whether pilots captured by the 
Allies were as well treated as our pilots who landed in 



248 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Germany. He said that the officer pilots captured 
were sent to a camp near to and very like the camp 
to which they send their own pilots when they are in 
need of a rest. They are comfortably housed, have 
good meals with meat twice a day and are allowed to 
go and come as they please so long as they give their 
word not to attempt to escape and report back at 
night. This again, of course, may have been an exag- 
geration* in order to try to get good treatment for 
himself, but even if it was true, I guess the joker in 
the pack was the proviso about not attempting to 
escape, for few men would care to give their word on 
this for more than a very limited period. The Boche 
also told us that the German pilots were very well fed 
but that the men in the trenches had a miserable time 
of it in this respect. We did not get around to asking 
him about the civilian population. With regard to 
our combat he said it would have been a different story 
had he had his old observer with him, that it was 
Lt. Groschel's first trip across the lines and he had 
not shot at me very much. It was small comfort to 
him, I think, when we told him that his observer's gun 
had been put out of commission at the beginning of 
the fight and that, therefore, he could hardly be blamed 
for not shooting more than he did. 

One interesting thing we found in the Hun plane 
was a small, innocent-looking iron box about the size 
and shape of an ordinary brick. It was screwed to the 
floor of the observer's cockpit. Printed on the top of 
the box in German were the words " Beware. Danger 
of death." One of the words was "Vorsicht," which 

* From reports of prisoners since received, it was certainly a false 
statement. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 249 

I remembered as having been painted on the cases of 
caps which exploded in that Admiralty case we had 
in the office. At first we never noticed the thing, it 
was so small and inconspicuous, until a French major 
pointed it out. We then cautiously removed it and 
brought it back to camp. I gave orders that it be put 
away carefully in a safe place, for it should have been 
turned over to the Ordnance Department. Unfortu- 
nately the man to whom I gave the orders misunder- 
stood me and thought I said I wanted it done away 
with. _ In my absence, therefore, they took it out in a 
field and tied it to a tree, fastened a rope to the small 
handle on top of the box after unfastening the safety 
wire which held this down, then pulled the handle out 
and ran. Just five minutes later that little infernal 
machine went off with a report like an ordinary aerial 
bomb. It blew a hole in the ground a foot deep by 
three feet across and cut down the tree to which it 
was tied and another small one beside it. The trees 
were eight and four inches in diameter respectively 
and of solid live wood. The Boche pilot told us that 
all German machines except the single-seaters now 
carry these bombs so as to destroy the plane in case of 
a forced landing in enemy territory. He had not 
pulled the handle because he was not sure that his 
observer was dead and he could not get him out of 
the machine by himself. I had heard of these things 
before but had never seen one. I remember hearing 
of one case where a Hun plane was forced to land in 
Belgium. The pilot and observer got out and walked 
off to one side surrounded by soldiers, but never said 
anything about having released the fuse of the bomb. 
A lot of Belgian soldiers gathered about the machine 



250 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

and the bomb went off, killing a large number of them. 
Whereupon the other soldiers promptly slaughtered 
the two Huns. 

The Boche pilot went on to say that he did not like 
American pilots, for he had been shot down in flames 
by two of them about the middle of last May. Luckily 
ior him he was able to land his machine and jump out 
before she burned up. Two weeks before, about the 
first of May, he got some bullets in his motor which 
put it out of business, but as he had lots of height he 
was able to glide well into his own lines and land 
safely. His last encounter when I brought him down 
on Aug. 16th was, therefore, his third experience at 
being brought down. He said he had been flying 
for five years and I believe him, for he certainly han- 
dled his machine well and had his observer not been 
knocked out at the beginning, he would have given 
him some good shots at me. Eichner said he had 
almost finished his term of service at the front, and in 
three weeks would have been sent to the rear as an 
instructor. Pretty rum luck to get knocked down 
just at the end like that. 

This Boche was so communicative that we wished 
very much that we could have had more time to talk 
to him. The circumstances under which we ques- 
tioned him were very unfavorable for getting the 
most out of him. He was in a small room with four 
American and three French officers, being continually 
plied with questions by them. If we could have taken 
him somewhere, given him a good dinner and a few 
drinks, and then gotten to swapping yarns in a friendly 
way about the war instead of firing a lot of direct 
questions at him, I think he would have told us every- 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 251 

thing he knew about Germany. He seemed more 
worried about not having anything to shave or brush 
his hair with than anything else. Also he had, the 
night before he was brought down, given his observer 
a hundred marks to buy him a flask of whiskey, which 
had only cost four marks. He wanted to know if the 
change had been found on the observer's body, for he 
did not have much cash with him to see him through 
till the end of the war. I felt like giving him some, 
but thought the guard would probably take it from 
him, and then also a Hun is not entitled to many 
favors, so I gave him a package of cigarettes and called 
it square at that. He seemed pleased, said he thought 
the captain (being me) seemed like a pretty nice sort 
of a fellow, and wanted to know my name, so we ex- 
changed cards and I have already sent you his. The 
one I gave him had "Andalusia, Pa.," on it so if he 
calls on you after the war do not be surprised. Un- 
fortunately the pilot who acted as interpreter and who 
could read German script was drowned a few days ago 
while bathing in a creek near by. I enclose you the 
leaves from the note-book which you sent me for 
Xmas, on which Eichner wrote his name and address 
as well as that of his observer. The rest of it says 
that he was brought down in combat but only slightly 
wounded, while the observer was killed. He wrote this 
with the idea that I would drop his note over the 
lines, but I shall drop a copy. 

Had a hot scrap with another Rumpler the other 
day and we only lost him by the hardest kind of luck. 
The flight was the most disappointing and at the same 
time the most extraordinary encounter I have ever 
been mixed up in. Have no time to write you about 



252 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

it now but will save it for my next. The gist of it 
was that I drove a Rumpler two-seater from 5,500 to 
50 metres, four miles inside our lines, shot the ob- 
server's gun away from Mm, and then when I had him 
lashed to the mast had to let him get away because 
the belt in one gun broke and I had fired all the car- 
tridges out of the other in driving him down. For ten 
minutes I manoeuvred around him without being able 
to fire a shot, but trying to run him into a tree or a 
house or hoping that some one on the ground would 
come along and bring him down with a brick. 

P. S. — Forgot to tell you what I referred to above 
when I said I still got along with the old folks as well 
as the children. When I went back to the field where 
the German plane was, an effusive middle-aged French 
lady grabbed my hand and insisted on kissing it, before 
the whole crowd, much to my confusion. These poor 
people do not know the difference between a photo- 
graphic and reconnaissance plane such as the Rumpler 
and the night bombing machines. The region where 
my Hun came down had been very heavily bombed, 
so the civilians look upon any one who brings down a 
Hun as their deliverer from torment. I tell you all 
this to show you that I am still quite a man with the 
ladies, provided they are under the age of twelve or 
more than about forty-five. In between these ages I 
seem to be about as hopeless as ever. 

Toul, September 20th, 1918. 

Many happy returns of the day, even though it 

will be a month late when you get it. It really begins 

to look as though we shall be able to celebrate your 

next birthday together, for I think the old Boche is 




Observer's cockpit and machine-gun of machine shown 

facing page 242. 

Note how the cartridge-belt has been broken by a bullet, thus putting 



tin- gun (.in of action 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 253 

beginning to get a bit worried by the constant ham- 
mering the Allies are now giving him from one end of 
the front to the other. This is only a line to let -you 
know that I am well and flourishing, for I have been 
and still am so busy that extensive letter-writing is 
well-nigh impossible. We have had a big week and 
the squadron has done some good work, although I am 
sorry to say that we have also had a hard knock and 
lost too many men. In three days — September 13th- 
15th — we shot down officially eight German machines, 
all single-seater fighting planes. In the same time, 
however, we ourselves lost six men, two of them being 
among my best pilots and one particularly as valuable 
a pilot and as fine a man as there was in the squadron. 
It makes me sick at heart to see these boys go, espe- 
cially when I know that all but perhaps one or two of 
our losses were entirely unnecessary and should never 
have occurred. In the American aviation it is the 
same as in the infantry, the great trouble is that the 
new men will get carried away with themselves in a 
combat and go too strong. I have talked and preached 
and harped on the importance of care ever since the 
formation of the squadron, but it seems that the only 
thing which makes most men remember is bitter ex- 
perience. When a man has seen his friends shot down 
around him or has been nearly killed himself a few 
times, he begins to realize what he may get himself in 
for and thinks twice before he takes wild chances which 
do not pay. These fellows we lost had plenty of 
nerve, but as I said before some of them went too 
strong and others evidently got separated from the 
formation in the course of a combat, and then instead 
of returning to our lines at once, fooled around by 



254 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

themselves in the Gorman lines trying to pick up the 
rest of the patrol. There were plenty of Huns about 
and I suppose my men must have fallen in with supe- 
rior numbers and been overwhelmed. Of the six I my- 
self saw one shot down in the course of a tight in which 
we brought down two Huns and in the same fight I 
saw another of my men following a Boche far into his 
own lines at only about 100 metres altitude. T was 
afraid he would get himself into trouble and tried to 
watch him. at the same time endeavoring to get the 
patrol together, for we had become very much scat- 
tered during the tight. It happened, however, that I 
was flying an extra plane without any distinguishing 
marks on it, while my own machine was being repaired. 
It was. therefore, difficult for the other men to recog- 
nize me. and being unable to collect them I went in 
by myself to watch the man who was still chasing a 
Hun just above the tree tops, lie followed him fifteen 
kilometres into the German lines and then I saw him 
attacked by two Fokkers and manoeuvring very well 
to protect himself. I dove to help him and would 
have been in plenty of time had my motor not stopped, 
owing to some dirt in the gas line. This forced me to 
pull up for several seconds, but I got her going again 
and dove down over the fight as fast as I could go. but 
by the time I had come from -.000 to 000 metres alti- 
tude the Huns had shot my man's motor and forced 
him to land. There were lots of Boche about and as 
we were on the far side of one of their balloons and 
the machine guns and "Archies" on the ground were 
making it pretty hot for me 1 had to pull out. I tried 
to get a shot at the two Huns, but before I could come 
up with them they flew back toward their own aero- 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 255 

drome, which was only a short distance 1 from where fche 
fight took place, and there was nothing more I could do 
then, but to my dying day I shall feel that I should 
have been able to save that boy. Perhaps not, but 
just the same I am afraid I hesitated an instant too 
long. I could not see him get out of his machine, so 
perhaps he was wounded. I only hope he was not 
killed.* lie was certainly conscious when lie landed, 
for he brought his machine down very well and al- 
though it went up on its nose as though a wheel had 
rolled into a hole, it was not even going fast enough 
to turn over. 

Still another man was caught by surprise by a gang 
of Huns whom the two other men who were with him 
saw and were able to get away from. He was a (light 
commander and an excellent, pilot and why he was 
surprised with all the warning he had, I cannot guess. 

The other three men none of us saw even attacked, 
and what happened to them no one knows; they just 
did not come back.j 

* This pilot had a most remarkable esoape. The motor, body, and 
wings of his plane were riddled with bullets and he himself got, several 

through his clothes but w;is unwounded. lie was made prisoner and 
returned after the signing of the armistice. 

f()f these three men one got lost in the courso of a fight, among Homo 
clouds and was forced to land in the German lines, while another find 

his motor f;iil him when he was attempting to save the man to whose 

assistance the author also tried to go, as described above. The result 

was that he too was forced to land in enemy territory and was taken 

prisoner. The third pilot mentioned earlier in these letters as D 

and as having brought down a Hun machine in Haines after his own 
plane had been riddled, was .shot down with one bullet, through his leg 
and with his right, arm pi-.i.ct ically torn off above the elbow by an ex- 
plosive bullet, lie fainted in (he air, but recovered consciousness suffi- 
ciently to partly right, his machine before it crashed tolthe ground. I'.y 
great good fortune he was not killed, and after Spending tWO months in 
a (ieriuan hospital, where his arm was amputated, returned after the 
signing of the annistiec. 



256 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

We have orders now to attack Hun observation bal- 
loons whenever possible and to burn them up, or at 
least force the Huns to pull them down. During a 
patrol the other d:ty I noticed one balloon very clearly, 
and at the end of the patrol went down to take a shot 
at it. My guns were not equipped with incendiary 
ammunition at the time, but on each patrol we have 
Borne pilot whose guns are loaded for balloons. Before 
going out I had told the men that we would attack 
balloons it' we saw any up, and accordingly dove down 
on this one to show the pilot who was loaded for bal- 
loons that T wanted him to attack it. As we dove 
down on the balloon I opened fire at three or four 
hundred yards range, much farther than I would have 
if 1 had hoped to be able to set it on fire myself. Hav- 
ing only armor-piercing and tracer ammunition, how- 
ever, 1 knew that this was practically impossible, and 
shot more to point out the balloon to my companion 
than for anything else. The Huns did not pull the 
balloon down nearly as fast as usual when they saw us 
coming, and several anti-aircraft machine guns opened 
up on ns when we were still twelve hundred yards 
above them. As I was diving I noticed one in particu- 
lar shooting at me, and the incendiary ammunition 
which they use makes the gun appear at long range 
something like a huge watering-pot spraying its con- 
tents up toward you. 

When 1 first opened fire I aimed directly for the bal- 
loon without allowing for the fall of my bullets at long 
range, and noticed the stream of shots passing just 
under the edge of the gas-bag and about into the 
observer's basket. Two of ns fired perhaps three hun- 
dred and fifty rounds into that sausage, but we only 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. P. 257 

shot a lot of holes in it ami nothing happened, for the 
man who had the balloon ammunition did not see it 
at all. Then we Btarted back for our lines, about 
eight miles away, and I never before have run into 
such hot anti-aircraft fire. Ther^ must have been a 
dozen machine guns firing at us from every possible 

angle, and it seemed as though the HUM had lurried 
loose every "Archie" gun in the sector. We flew along 

for what seemed as age in a perfect cloud of shell- 
bursts, ducking and diving this way and that to throw 
the gunners off their Conge, but vvcry way one tinned 
it seemed as (hough a shell would go off in front and 
Others on each side. Being only five or six hundred 
yards from the ground, the machine guns could be 

plainly heard, and these, mingled with the explosions 
of the bursting shells, made quite a rumpus. It cer- 
tainly is remarkable, though, how much I hooting can 
be done without hitting anything, for none of our 
planes was so much as touched by either the machine 
guns or the "Archies." 

The most peculiar part of the whole thing, however, 
was that with two planes right on top of that balloon 
shooting it full of holes, tin; observers did not jump 
out in their parachutes. I do not believe that any 
observer in his sober senses would stick to his basket 

under such circumstances, and at first thought that 

my shots which 1 saw apparently going into the basket 

must have hit the observers. Upon thinking it over, 
however, I am inclined to believe that the whole thing 
was a trap. I have heard of decoy balloons about 

which are placed particularly strong anti-aircraft de- 
fenses. In such cases the ranges and angles of fire are 
very carefully worked out ahead of time, the idea 



258 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

being to decoy enemy planes to attack the balloon, 
and thus get them down within good range of the guns. 
Such a decoy of course carries no observers. If this 
is what we ran into, the decoy worked first-rate, but 
I can't say so much for the men behind the guns. 

Balloons seem to be my hoodoo and it does not look 
as if I should ever get one. Each chance I have had 
my guns have either jammed or I have had no incen- 
diary ammunition. Then I load up with incendiaries, 
go out and run into some Hun planes. The incendiary 
bullets then jam or make so much smoke I can hardly 
see the Hun and this makes me mad, so that I get rid 
of the incendiaries again, and so it goes. 

Captain Deullin, of N. 73, came around to the 
squadron and had dinner with me the other evening. 
I have also dined with him once or twice and he is now 
in command of Groupe de Chasse 19 of the French 
Aviation. We got talking over the old days when we 
were in Flanders a year ago, and he told me a most 
amusing sequel to a fight which I remember he had 
there. 

He was out by himself one day, flying very high, a 
considerable distance inside the Boche lines, east of 
Ypres. He ran across a formation of half a dozen 
Albatross scouts, and being above them, tried to dive 
down and pick one of them off. There was one Hun 
in particular who had his machine very gaudily painted 
up in red and yellow and all the colors of the rainbow, 
whom Deullin tried to shoot. This Hun would delib- 
erately fly up under him, offering an apparently good 
chance, but as soon as Deullin would start to dive 
down on him he would begin side-slipping and doing 
renversements down into the middle of his companions 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 259 

who kept circling in close formation just below him. 
This was, of course, nothing but the old Hun trick of 
trying to decoy an enemy down into the middle of a 
group of their machines, so that they could all jump 
on him, but Deullin is too old a hand to fall for any 
stuff like that. He tried for fifteen minutes to get 
that brightly colored Hun but could never get a decent 
shot at him and said that he was without exception 
the most skilful German pilot that he had ever run 
across. Finally he had to give it up, as his supply of 
gasoline was getting low, so he started back to his own 
lines, the Huns following along below and behind him. 
On the way he ran across a solitary Albatross, took 
him by surprise, and shot him down in flames. 

Six months later, when Deullin was down on the 
Soissons sector, he heard that a well known German 
ace had been brought down slightly wounded, in the 
French lines. As Deullin speaks German, he thought 
it might be interesting to talk to the Hun, so he went 
over to see him. He asked him how long he had been 
flying in the Soissons sector, and the Hun said that he 
had only been there a little while, as his squadron had 
always been stationed in Flanders. Deullin told him 
that he also had been in Flanders, suggested that they 
might have met up there, and then told him the story 
about his fight. He mentioned the peculiar way in 
which the brightly colored Albatross had been painted, 
and the time and place at which the fight took place. 
The Hun smiled and said: "Why, yes, that was I. I 
remember that very well." Deullin then said: "And 
did you see that Albatross of yours that I shot down 
in flames, just after our fight?" To which the Hun 
replied: "Yes, I saw him; didn't he burn nicely?" 



260 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

P. S. — I was mixed up in one or two of the fights 
this week but do not think my shooting had anything 
to do with bringing down any of the Huns, so they do 
not count for me personally. 

Belrain,* Sept. 29, 1918. 
Once again I am sending you just a line after an 
interval of ten days, to let you know that I am well. 
We have been going through a period of the toughest 
fighting I have ever experienced since I have been on 
the front, but I think the old Boches have been having 
a still tougher time than we have. I am sorry to say 
that the squadron has had still further losses, although 
we have managed to keep our victories ahead of the 
losses. On the 26thf I lost two new men who had 
come out to replace some of those lost in the first offen- 
sive. You cannot guess how I hate to put these new 
boys into the hardest kind of fighting, while they are 
still so totally inexperienced that they do not know 
how to properly protect themselves. One knows per- 
fectly well when one sends them out that some of them 
are going to be killed, whereas, if they could be given a 
little preliminary experience in a quiet sector, they 
would have a much better chance and would individu- 
ally probably accomplish a great deal more. There is 
no time for this now, however. The Huns are on the 
run and the thing to do is to throw in everything we 
have so as to get them running so fast they cannot 
stop. A green man is worth more now, green as he 
is, than he would be a couple of months hence if he 
were saved and given additional training. Hence 
with each squadron doing as much work as it can pos- 

* About ten miles north of Bar-le-Duc. 
f The first day of the Argorjne offensive. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 261 

sibly handle at full strength and after having had such 
heavy losses in this squadron, it is absolutely necessary 
to throw the green men in, and when they don't come 
back, one simply has to grin and bear it. 

We sallied forth on the morning of the 26th shortly 
after daylight and had a dozen machines flying in two 
formations one above the other. I was leading the lower 
formation myself and we had not been long on the lines 
before I spotted seven biplane Fokker single-seater 
fighting machines coming in the distance. We had 
the altitude on them so I passed over them and then 
dropped on the rear man. Unfortunately he saw me 
just before I opened fire and turned sharply under me. 
I gave it to him at about fifty yards, but the shot was 
a very difficult one, and although my tracer bullets 
seemed to be going In about the right place I could 
not be sure that I got him. There was no time to 
watch him after my first burst. Going down after this 
one put me on the same level with the rest of them, 
about 4,200 metres, and as they all turned back I saw 
that I was going to charge right through the middle 
of them. Jammed on my motor full speed and pulled 
up for all I was worth, passing just above the heads 
of all six. Then did a renversement and dropped on 
the tail of the last man, who had, I think, been the 
leader. Perhaps he did not see me for a moment be- 
cause I got behind him at about fifty metres and had 
a dead shot at him. Gave him a good burst and he 
turned over and started to fall. I think he was pretty 
sick, for I saw my tracer bullets going into him, but 
again was unable to watch this Hun go down on ac- 
count of the others. I attacked a third, but had to 
shoot at too long range to be effective. 

By this time I thought the fight had progressed far 



262 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

enough into the German lines, considering that there 
were new men along and we had lost considerable alti- 
tude during the combat. I therefore pulled up and 
endeavored to get my formation together, signalling 
the other planes to fall into their positions. Collected 
a couple of them and with the upper formation well 
together and above we started for our lines. Just then 
I caught sight of six or seven machines far in the 
German lines, so far away that it was impossible to 
tell which were Fokkers and which Spads. They 
were manoeuvring, however, as though in combat, and 
I knew that if any of my men were there they must be 
greatly outnumbered and much too far in the Boche 
lines. I turned and dove full speed toward the fight 
and soon made out a Spad manoeuvring wildly, trying 
to shake off two Fokkers which were on his tail at 
point-blank range. He was in a bad way and I prayed 
that I should not this time be too late. Just then to 
my right I saw a second Spad making for our lines, 
closely pursued by two other Fokkers, so I dove down 
on them and drove them off and then turned to help 
out the first Spad. He was nowhere to be seen, al- 
though I caught a glimpse of his two pursuers making 
for home. One of my men did not return from this 
fight, so I am afraid that they must have gotten him. 
Once more the same old story of a man forgetting 
that there is any danger other than that which may 
come from the machine which he is attacking. This 
is, of course, much the lesser danger. In this fight we 
had everything in our favor and there was no reason 
why anyone should have gotten in trouble if they 
would only not get carried away with themselves. It 
is splendid the way these boys will sail in and fight, 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 2G3 

but no amount of warning seems to teach them the 
necessary caution if they are to live long at the game. 
Only bitter experience teaches them, and that is dearly 
paid for. The man who was being pursued by the 
Fokkers which I drove off was a major temporarily at- 
tached to the squadron to get some practical experi- 
ence. He got it all right. He is an extremely nice fel- 
low and I am glad to say he got safely back to our lines. 
In the course of this fight we shot up four or five Huns, 
but only two were confirmed.* 

Later in the day on the 2Gth we got orders for a 
strafing party on some roads well in the German 
lines. "Strafing," you will recall, is aviation slang 
for bombing and shooting up troops, etc., on the 
roads, from very low altitudes, two or three hundred 
metres. It is most unpleasant and dangerous work, 
for one gets shot up from the ground, against which 
there is no protection, and then any Huns who may 
come along in the air have you at a great disadvan- 
tage. I could not go out on this show as several of 
my flight commanders were laid up and I had to take 
out a high patrol shortly afterward. Seven Fokkers 
came down on the strafing party, and although my 
men shot down one Hun, one of ours did not return. 
It is a rotten situation to put a green man in, but I 
fail to see how it can be helped. Am glad to say, 
however, that I don't think we shall have much more 
of this work to do. The Boches we got on the 26th 

* The pilot who failed to return from this fight was shot down, 
wounded, in the German lines. He returned after the armistice with 
the information that a second group of Fokkers had come into the 
combat in addition to the original seven, and that instead of two, 
eight Huns were actually brought down, four of whom he himself saw 
dead on the ground. 



264 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

make fifteen for the squadron, but the losses have been 
much in excess of what they should have been, eight 
in all. 

Will have to stop now so as to get this letter off, 
but there is not much other news to give you anyhow. 
We have moved since I last wrote but have only gone 
a little way up the line, not so very far from where we 
were. The fight on the 26th took place just north of 
the most famous city of the War, so I shall leave you 
to guess the exact location.* My Hun had four large 
red and white squares on the centre section of his top 
plane, the marking of a rather famous German squad- 
ron which we call the checkerboards, for the squares 
look like part of a checkerboard. f I glanced over the 
side of my machine at the Hun as he spun down below 
me only twenty or thirty yards away and could plainly 
see his markings. 

Belrain, Oct. 8, 1918. 
Since we moved from our old station J our mail has 
been veiy much delayed, so that for several weeks we 
received none at all, but a few days ago came a very 
welcome letter from you and Mother. I was mighty 
glad to hear that everything is going along smoothly 
at home and that you are all well. Things are moving 
along about the same here, plenty of work and no little 
excitement, but the weather has been almost continu- 
ously bad and has made the flying hard and not pro- 
ductive of many Boches to our credit. We get out 

* Verdun. 

t Reported as one of the squadrons of the Von Richthofen group. 

j Toul. The squadron moved from Toul at the end of the St. Mihiel 
offensive, to a field south of the Argonne Forest, in preparation for 
the Argonne offensive. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 265 

almost every day but are all the time flying in low- 
clouds, squalls of rain, etc., which make it unpleasant. 
Under ordinary conditions we would not be flying at 
all, but during a push weather conditions make little 
difference. The squadron got a couple of Huns this 
week, but I was not in either of the fights, as I have 
been having bad luck with my machine and had to 
give up a patrol four or five times in succession due to 
motor trouble. 

Forgot to tell you that I now have a new machine 
of a special type mounting a most murderous weapon 
of a gun. I cannot tell you just what this gun is, but 
if I ever hit a Boche with it he should come down in 
small pieces. The trouble is to hit them, for the gun 
only shoots once and then must be reloaded by hand. 
The machine was made specially by the French for 
poor Dave Putnam, the American "As des As," who 
was taken by surprise by eight Huns at the beginning 
of the St. Mihiel offensive and brought down. I was 
awfully sorry about Putnam, as I knew him quite 
well, and he was a fine, fearless, unassuming fellow, 
who had done some wonderful work. We found him 
in our lines with two bullets through his heart. 

The machine I mention is the only one of its kind 
in the American service, so I am very anxious to try 
it out. They gave it to me when Putnam was killed. 
Guynemer had one and Fonck and Deullin each have 
one and have used them with fair success. I do not 
mean by this statement to be trying to class myself 
with them, so don't start to kid me on that score. 
This special gun is difficult to use, but if a shot ever 
hits a Hun he might just as well say his prayers and 
give up, if he has time to think about anything at all. 



266 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

I have my regular machine in addition, and we have 
really been so busy that I have not had time to try out 
the new one. It handles differently from our ordinary 
machines and I wish to get considerable practice before 
I go monkeying around any Huns with it, for I should 
hate to be knocked by some Heinie just because I could 
not manoeuvre my new plane quickly.* 

Give my regards to every one in the office. How is 

Y these days? I have not heard from him for 

ages. Has he any offspring yet? I remember last 
fall I bet him I could get a Boche before he had any 
children. 

Belrain, Oct. 14, 191S. 

What do you all think of the news from all the 
fronts and the peace prospects from the Huns? It 
certainly is wonderful and it really begins to look at 
last as though they are getting a bit weak in the knees. 
My guess is that it will either be all over by the time 
you receive this letter or that we will have at least 
another year of it. I have heretofore thought the lat- 
ter certain, but it now looks as if the former is the 
more probable, and I surely hope so. We must stick 
at it all the harder for the time being until the war is 
ended as it should be, but the end cannot come any 
too soon to please me. I spent all of yesterday search- 
ing the battlefield for one of my men who was killed 

* The gun mentioned was a 37 mm. cannon, which shot through 
the hub of the propeller. It fired two kinds of ammunition, one like 
a huge shotgun cartridge loaded with a lot of slugs, and the other a 
combination incendiary and high-explosive shell, which would explode 
upon contact with any part of an aeroplane. If, therefore, a hit was 
scored even on the wing of an enemy machine, the resulting explosion 
would blow the wing off. It would consequently not be necessary with 
this gun, as it is with a machine gun, to hit that small area of a machine, 
which is ordinarily its only vital spot, in order to bring it down. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 207 

about ten days ago, and a few hours spent on the 
ground near the front lines impresses the horror of it 
all upon one more than a month's flying over the 
same lines. The man I speak of had a bit of the hard- 
est luck that it is possible for a flyer to have. His 
name was Armstrong and he was one of my flight 
commanders and about the most valuable man I had. 
Besides being an extremely nice fellow and a very 
skilful pilot, he had a head on his shoulders which he 
used all the time which made him invaluable as a 
leader of the younger men. He had learned to appre- 
ciate the two principal points in this game, i. e., that 
there is a great difference between foolhardiness and 
true courage, and that nine-tenths of the danger comes 
from another enemy than the one which you are 
attacking. The realization of these points, coupled 
with nerve and perseverance, are, I think, the most 
important qualities of a successful pilot. 

Armstrong took the lead of a patrol one cloudy 
day when I was forced to come back owing to motor 
trouble. Shortly after the patrol reached the lines 
they sighted half a dozen Fokkers and dove to attack 
them. Owing to the low clouds they were only about 
600 metres up and our artillery was sending over a 
heavy barrage. Just as Armstrong opened up on a 
Fokker, one of his pilots who was fifty yards in rear of 
him suddenly saw his right wings and tail fly off while 
the rest of the machine fell in a cloud of black smoke, 
leaving the air filled with fragments of the plane. He 
had run squarely into one of our big shells on its way 
to Germany. There could be no other explanation, for 
the fight was just inside our lines and the patrol was 
not being fired on by anti-aircraft guns at the time. 



268 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

This same thing has happened a number of times be- 
fore, but it is comparatively rare, and coming as it did 
to one of our best men just when every experienced 
man in the squadron is so badly needed, was about 
as tough a bit of luck as one could imagine. An inti- 
mate friend of Armstrong and I searched high and low 
yesterday for some trace of him, but could find noth- 
ing. We expect to try again shortly; for after my ex- 
perience with Oliver I know how much this would 
mean to Armstrong's family and to his young wife, 
whom he married just before sailing for France. 

Armstrong had a very close friend who has now taken 
his place in the squadron as a flight commander, and 
there were two other men who were also about as close 
friends as I think it is possible for two men to be. 
Both these pairs were old friends and had been con- 
stantly together in their training and work at the 
front just as Oliver and I were. Now one is gone 
from each and the distress of the other two is indeed 
pitiful to see and I think I know how they feel. The 
loss of their dearest friend has shaken them as nothing 
else could and, although it will probably make better 
men of them in the end, the process is a very painful 
one. One of these men fought six Huns single-handed 
and at a low altitude ten miles in the German lines in 
his efforts to save his friend. He brought down one 
Hun and was almost killed himself, and I have recom- 
mended him for the D. S. C. for his courage. 

The fighting on the ground in this sector has been 
terrific recently and the opposition stronger, I think, 
than at any other part of the front. The Huns seem 
to have massed a large part of their best troops oppo- 
site us, and in addition to this the country is hilly and 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 269 

naturally suitable for defense. Walking over the bat- 
tlefield was a very interesting though gloomy sight, 
for the day was stormy, with a cold, drizzling rain. 
Everywhere one went were evidences of the recent 
advance, rifles and bayonets lying about in the grass, 
here and there various articles of cast-off clothing and 
equipment, and occasionally a knot of bloody bandages 
or a blood-soaked shirt where some poor devil had 
been trying to tie up his wounds. As you go forward 
you pass rows of holes scooped out by the advancing 
infantry, each one just big enough to hold one man. 

In one of these, rather deeper than the others, I 
noticed where some fellow had evidently taken shelter 
until help came to him. In his pit were his mess-kit and 
some empty emergency ration tins, all lying in a pool 
of dark blood. While we were there our artillery was 
hard at it but the Boche shelling was only very inter- 
mittent. Every now and then you would hear the 
whine of a shell coming which reminded me very much 
of May 15th, although none of them came very close 
to us. Now that the Huns are squealing for peace I 
wish that I could take President Wilson, who is evi- 
dently going to have a good deal to say about the 
terms, and walk with him over some of these battle- 
fields. Let him look at a battle in progress, and at 
all the wreckage behind it, at the fragments lying 
about of what were once men and horses and at a once 
beautiful country now reduced to a barren desert. If 
he could see the ambulances with their gruesome loads, 
and the less severely wounded hobbling along toward 
the rear, many of them covered with blood and hav- 
ing wounds which would ordinarily call for an ambu- 
lance but having to walk none the less to make room 



270 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

for others worse off than they. If he could then pay 
a visit to a first-aid dressing-post and to the receiving 
and operating rooms of a field-hospital, the latter a 
veritable butcher shop, I am sure that he would feel 
as most of the men at the front feel, that there can be 
no decent peace until the Huns are utterly and com- 
pletely defeated and made to pay the full price for all 
the misery that they have caused. I hope those higher 
up appreciate this as it is, but a little view of the real 
thing would bring it home to them as all the pictures 
and descriptions in the world never can. Some of the 
men that I have lost from this squadron have been of 
the best and it makes one sick at heart to see these 
splendid young fellows, the finest that we can produce 
and men who cannot be replaced, dropping off singly 
and in bunches. Of their families I know nothing, but 
knowing the men themselves and the stuff that was in 
them, one knows that their people must be of the 
right sort and one can easily imagine the sorrow that 
must be caused by the loss of such men. If any but 
the right kind of a peace should come, one would 
always feel that all these fine fives had been sacrificed 
in vain. 

We have been having a long stretch of bad weather, 
so that there has not been much flying, for which I 
have been rather thankful in a way, as the men needed 
the rest. I have personally only had one fight since 
last writing and that a very unsuccessful one. We 
were out one day protecting some of our " Liberty" 
day bombers and I caught a Fokker napping who had 
gotten off to one side of his patrol and was entirely 
taken up with trying to get a shot at the Liberties. I 
dropped down on him and sneaked up behind without 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 271 

his seeing me, but lost him by my same old trick of 
shooting too soon. I thought he was going to see me 
and duck, when I should have known that he probably 
would not see me. I opened fire at about a hundred 
yards range and gave him about forty shots, some of 
which I am sure hit his machine, but did not have the 
luck to get the pilot. He pulled up in my face into a 
renversement and dove on his nose to escape, while I 
was prevented from following him by the rest of the 
Hun patrol, which was off to one side, and by my job 
of protecting the Liberties. Was so disgusted at miss- 
ing him anyhow that I sort of felt that having missed 
such an easy chance I did not care much if the Boche 
did get away. If I had only waited as I should have 
until I was right on top of him I could not well have 
missed him. I certainly am an idiot not to have 
learned better judgment by this time. 

The fight I mentioned in one of my earlier letters, 

when I said that F was sitting on a nearby hill 

watching the whole show, occurred in this wise. About 
a week after I got that Rumpler three of us were out 
looking for another one and found him at 5,500 metres, 
a considerable distance in our lines. I had a stronger 
motor than the others and climbed up under him first, 
and made him turn to protect himself. I drove him 
down a little, never getting very close, and then we 
all three pounced on him and shot the observer's 
gun away from him so that the Hun was practically 
helpless and should have been easy meat. Then the 
Fates turned against us, for one of my men's motor 
failed him so that he had to land while both the other 
fellow's guns jammed. He pulled up for a minute to 
fix them and lost the fight, for just at that moment I 



272 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

and the Hun were playing hide-and-go-seek around the 
edges of some big white puffy clouds. I kept after the 
Boche (another Rumpler with a big white number 8 
on the side of his fuselage), but he manoeuvred very 
well and made it almost impossible to get a decent 
shot at him. I would give him a burst now and then 
to turn him and drive him down low in our lines where 
he would have to stop his tricks, relying all the time 
on having two men with me to help finish him off. 
Finally I drove him down to 50 metres, about a mile 

in front of F 's balloon and some four miles in our 

lines. That day my own machine was out of commis- 
sion and I was flying a plane especially equipped with 
large balloon guns shooting incendiary ammunition. 

They do not carry as much ammunition and are not 
as reliable as our ordinary guns and I had fired a good 
many shots at long range to drive the Hun down rather 
than with any thought of getting him at such a dis- 
tance. Then, to my consternation, when I had gotten 
the Boche just where I wanted him I found that my 
companions were nowhere to be seen and that I had 
fired all the ammunition out of one gun, while the 
band in the other was broken. While I had been 
shooting I had, of course, had to manoeuvre so as to 
protect myself, for even after we silenced the observer's 
gun it was some little time before I realized that he 
could not shoot and saw that his gun was pointing idly 
up in the air beside him. When I saw that Boche 
skimming the tree-tops and just before I discovered 
that my own guns were useless, I had visions of getting 
another Rumpler intact with two prisoners this time. 
Reckon I was a bit too cocky from my previous expe- 
rience. Unfortunately the Boche had a good motor 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 273 

this time and would not land, but kept trying to get 
back to his lines. 

When I found that I could not shoot I kept manoeu- 
vring with him, and for ten minutes tried to run him 
into the trees or a house or to herd him over to the 
balloon where the machine gunners on the ground 
could get him. Tried every bluff I could think of to 
make him land, diving down and coming up under his 
tail as though I was going to shoot him, and several 
times pulling up when the nose of my machine was 
only a few feet from him, in the hope that he would 
think that a wild American was trying to run him 
down and thus scare him into landing. All the time 
the observer was standing facing me in his cockpit, 
and as I would dive down on him he would lean over, 
tap the pilot on the shoulder and yell in his ear which 
way to turn, at the same time pointing first one direc- 
tion and then another. I think I would almost recog- 
nize that fellow; he had a small brown mustache and 
a rather pasty face and was wearing one of those big 
round cork helmets that we used to have in the schools. 

During these proceedings the Boche pilot's gun was 
all right, but it is not very hard to keep out of the way 
of that. Finally after ten minutes or so of this game 
the Huns caught on to the fact that I could not shoot 
and started for home, allowing me to do more or less 
as I pleased. Made one last effort to bluff them as 
we reached the lines, but it was no use and the observer 
even went so far as to wave at me as I turned off for 
the last time. Then what did they do but turn around 
and chase me home several miles into our lines, the 
pilot plugging away at me with his gun. 

We had climbed up three or four hundred metres 



274 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

by this time and I have always wondered what our 
"doughboys" must have thought when they saw one 
of their Spads dashing full speed for home with a big 
old Rumpler on his tail. As you know, the Rumpler 
is a two-seater reconnaissance machine, which usually 
only fights to protect itself when attacked. I had no 
trouble in getting out of his way, but it was the most 
ignominious thing I ever had happen to me and I 
have not gotten over feeling sore about it to this day. 
It was just like having a Hun tied to a tree and then 
having to let him go, for all the hard part was over, 
and all that was needed to finish him was half a dozen 
more shots. I kept praying all the time that another 
one of our machines would come along or that some 
one walking down the road would bring the Boche 
down with a pistol or a brick or any old thing. Can 
you beat the whole thing for a crazy combat? When 
I saw that he was going to get away I almost cried 
with mortification. 

Hobe Baker has certainly had a run of the hardest 

kind of luck. Both he and M were recommended 

by me to take squadrons of their own and each was 

given a squadron, but Hobe came ahead of M , 

and was the first to go. As bad luck would have it, 
Baker's squadron was not yet ready, while the one 

which M was given a week later was all ready to 

go to the front. Now M 's squadron has been 

operating on the front for six weeks while Hobe is still 
in the rear and has not even got his pilots and machines 
yet, and there seemed to be no immediate prospect of 
his getting them when I last heard from him. It is 
too bad, for Hobe is one of the very best, a very skilful 
pilot, and has all the nerve in the world and is a thor- 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 27o 

ough gentleman. He is one of the fairest, most straight- 
forward fellows I know and should make an excellent 
squadron commander, but he has struck rum luck 
from the start. I know how he frets in his present 
position and wishes he could be here at the front with 
us again. 

Things have been going along about as usual here 
lately, almost continuous rain and bad weather. The 
constant damp has laid a good many of the men up 
with grippe, but I have personally been very well 
except for a slight cold, which is practically gone now. 
Had one clear day, day before yesterday, and in lead- 
ing a high patrol I managed to get my nose and upper 
lip frostbitten; they are healing now and I am a pretty 
sight but quite well just the same. Had a little excite- 
ment on this flight, but no results, I fear. I spotted 
five Fokkers sailing along a short distance in their 
lines and slid around behind them to attack the high 
one. Before we got very close I saw a lone Fokker 
away from the others and flying straight into our 
lines. This looked like easy meat so I took after him, 
tagging along behind him for a mile to let him go as 
far as he would into our territory. When he got a 
mile or so in I put on my motor full speed and came 
diving down on top of him, all the time searching the 
sky for others, as I felt sure that the Huns were up to 
one of their old tricks. The lone Boche had, I think, 
been watching us all the time, for when I got within a 
hundred yards of him and before I would have opened 
fire, he started to turn back under me, offering only 
the most difficult kind of a shot. I gave it to him and 
hit him, I think, and then pulled up to fix one of my 
guns which had jammed, and to look for the other 



276 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Boches. Two of the men with me shot at the Boche 
and we followed him down a little, he continually 
working back into his own lines. Then I saw his little 
game, for here came his five friends, and he trying to 
lead us in under them. As soon as I caught sight of 
them I pulled up and started to climb, at the same 
time waving my wings as a signal for the patrol to 
stop chasing the single Hun and fall into position. 
One man, however, a most excellent pilot and one of 
my flight commanders, did not see me pull up, and I 
saw him do just what I had feared all along. He dove 
down after the first Hun, entirely failing to see the 
others coming above, then as he pulled up after shoot- 
ing he pulled directly into the faces of three Fokkcrs, 
all of whom had altitude on him. The only thing he 
could do was to run, but this is no easy matter with a 
couple of Huns close on your tail. I saw my pilot 
turn and start ducking back for our lines, with two 
Boches close after him. I was by that time above 
the whole gang, so, as our man came toward me with 
the two Boches behind him, I stood on my nose and 
dove for all I was worth, both guns wide open and 
aiming in front of the Huns. There was no time to 
really aim, as I was afraid that a delay of a second 
might mean the end of our pilot, so I just sprayed the 
sky in front of the Huns with tracer and incendiary 
bullets, in the hope of being able to distract their 
attention sufficiently to let our fellow get away. I 
think the fuss I created did make them hesitate a lit- 
tle, and the Spad took advantage of this to dive like 
mad, and got safely away without a single bullet hole 
in him. I had myself gotten under the top Boches 
by this time, so pursued my usual policy, "He who 
fights and runs away," etc., and lit out for home 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 277 

before they got close enough to bother me. Altogether 
a rather unsuccessful party, but one in which I think 
our men learned a few things. But the nerve of that 
solitary Boche to let us jump him so that he could 
lead us into a trap, and the confidence he must have 
had, both in himself and his companions ! If we did 
not get him we at least gave him the thrill of his life, 
and I think his mechanics will be busy for a day or 
two changing wings and patching holes. He was one 
of the most gaudily painted boys you ever laid eyes 
on, bright red wings and fuselage as far back as the 
pilot's seat, and the rest of the body pure white with 
black crosses. In the middle of his top plane a black 
and white checkerboard.* 

I also recognized the markings of the others as one 
of the best-known Hun squadrons, broad black and 
white bands, the same as a gang that I had a fight 
with over Noyon last April. Some of the Huns with 
red wings have the rest of their machines a brilliant 
sky blue and are really beautiful to look at. There is 
a great deal of the best German chasse concentrated 
on our sector now and the pilots are certainly good, 
there is no use denying that fact. They have lots of 
fight in them and the way some of them can throw 
their machines around in the air shows clearly that 
they are old hands at the game. I wrote you a while 
ago that I plugged one of this checkerboard crew, but 
I would like to drop one of that red-winged outfit. 
We knocked a couple of them down in the last offensive 
but they got more of us than we did of them. 

Gave myself quite a thrill the other day when we 

* A few days later it was reported by American observers on the 
ground that this German had crashed in his own lines. A good illus- 
tration of how impossible it often is for a pilot to be certain whether 
or not he has brought down his antagonist. 



278 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

were out on a strafing expedition. A great deal of 
traffic was reported on a certain road* about five miles 
inside the Hun lines and we were ordered to attack it 
with machine guns and bombs. I was leading a patrol 
of about seven machines, but when we got back near 
the road there seemed to be nothing on it at all. We 
therefore flew over and dropped our bombs on some 
cars standing in a railroad yard along a river, f and then 
came down along the road to make sure that there was 
nothing there. Seeing nothing, I fired a number of 
rounds into a village J where there seemed to be a few 
soldiers, and then caught sight of a big Hun wagon, 
which looked like an old-fashioned prairie-schooner, 
going slowly down the road, drawn by four horses. I 
dove down over the trees, and shot one of the rear 
horses, but did not have time to watch the result, for 
something went wrong with the timing mechanism of 
one of my guns and I shot three or four holes through 
my own propeller, knocking several big hunks out of 
it. The effect of this is to throw the propeller out of 
balance, and my motor started to vibrate as though 
it were going to jump right out of the machine. The 
motor acted as if it might stop at any moment, and, 
being five miles inside the Hun lines and only two 
hundred yards high, I had most unpleasant visions of 
ignominiously ending the war by shooting myself 
down in Germany. Slowed my motor down as much 
as possible to have it still keep me going, and nursed it 
along, so that it brought me back to our lines, where I 
landed on an advance flying field until a new propeller 
could be sent up from the Squadron. In flying back 

* From Dun-sur-Meuse to BanthSville. 

t At Dun-sur-Meuse. J Aincreville. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 279 

to our lines I found it rather hard to force oneself to 
fly along at extreme slow speed just over the heads of 
a lot of Heinies, who, of course, take delight in shoot- 
ing at you. There were evidently no good bird shots 
among them, however, for they never touched me. 

One of the other squadrons in this group had an 
amusing time with a Hun a few days ago. Eight of 
them caught a solitary two-seater in our lines and sur- 
rounded him, the Hun got scared and dove down to 
500 metres, all the time following down the course of 
a river* which runs into our lines. Some of the pilots 
thought that perhaps they could make the Boche land 
and have some fun with his machine, and get some sou- 
venirs, but the Hun observer kept taking pot-shots at 
them all the time. Finally one youngster went down 
right beside the Boche and motioned for him to land, 
but for reply the observer shot the stuffing out of him, 
blowing a hole in his wind shield right in front of his 
nose and starting a fire in his machine. This made 
the American pilot a bit sore, to say the least, so he 
sailed into the Hun, shot the pilot through the head 
and set the plane on fire. Just before he hit the 
ground the observer jumped out and then the Hun 
machine spread itself all over a field. The American, 
having a small fire on board himself, had to get down 
as quickly as possible, which he did, but unfortunately 
picked out a barbed-wire entanglement. This wiped 
off his landing gear, while he and his machine turned 
a somersault over the wire and brought up upside 
down. He was never even scratched, so crawls out 
of his machine, grabs his pistol, and dashes over to 
where the Boches were for fear they might get away 

* The Meuse. 



2S0 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

from him. As one of them had just fallen 300 feet 
and the other was burning up in the wreck of his 
machine, this was a rather unnecessary but amusing 
precaution. Some of these young pilots of ours do 
the craziest things you ever heard of, but the nerve of 
some of them and the way they will fight is simply 
great. They are constantly confronting the Huns 
with the unexpected and getting away with it by the 
very audacity of their methods. 

One often hears tales of men who have landed 
behind the German lines and been able to get away 
again, but I never personally knew of a case until the 
other day. A new pilot from this group got separated 
from the rest of his formation during a fight which took 
place far the other side of the lines. Two Huns got 
on his tail and although he tried everything he could 
think of to get rid of them, he could not shake them 
off, and they ran him right down to the ground and 
forced him to land in then lines. His plane was badly 
shot up, but by great good fortune neither he nor his 
motor was Int. When he landed he left his motor 
turning over slowly and lay over in Ins cockpit as 
though he had been shot, the Huns all the time circling 
about just above his head. They evidently thought he 
was done for, for after looking him over they flew 
away, whereupon our pilot took off and came home. 
A mighty neat trick, but the next man who tries it is 
going to be out of luck, for the Huns probably will 
not be satisfied until they have shot him to pieces. 

I would like to say a word about the enlisted men of 
the American Air Service units as I have seen them 
on the front. The men of my own squadron are, I 
know, an exceptional lot, and one could ask for no 




A direci hit. 

Spad plane of the author's squadron which had a forced landing three miles 
from the lines bul within sighl of the German observation-balloons. I'n- 
til the Hun artillery obtained this hit there was nothing the matter with 
the machine but a broken gasoline line. 




The end of a famous American ace. 

Brought down near Limey, France, in the St. Mihiel sector, on the first daj 
( i' the offensive, September, 1918. 



13th AERO SQUADRON, A. E. F. 281 

better, and although I do not believe the general aver- 
age can come up to the standard of the men of the 
13th Squadron, it is nevertheless very good. The men 
are intelligent, hard-working, and conscientious. They 
as a whole take pride in their machines and in their 
pilots, and you cannot imagine what a comfort it is 
to a pilot to feel that his mechanics are careful and 
have his safety at heart. When the enlisted personnel 
first came out, they had had very little experience 
with the type of motor which we use,* and although 
this lack of experience caused us some minor troubles, 
the men pitched in with a will and overcame this 
handicap in a remarkably short time. 

The pride and affection which a good pilot can in- 
spire in his mechanics and the grief of the men when 
their own particular aviator does not come back, is 
sometimes very touching. 

When a pilot does not return from the last after- 
noon patrol before dark, we put out gasoline flares 
on the field to guide him home, in case he loses his 
way in the dusk. The Spad only carries sufficient 
gasoline to stay in the air for about two hours and 
twenty minutes, and yet I have seen a mechanic insist 
on keeping the flares burning until 9 o'clock at night 
for a man who had gone out at 4. Other men telling 
him that it was useless had no effect, for he said he 
knew that there was not any Hun good enough to kill 
his pilot, and that he just had to come back. I am 
glad to say that this fellow's faith was rewarded, for 
his pilot showed up the next day, having had a forced 
landing far from his home field. I have seen other 
mechanics sit down and cry like children when we 

* The Hispano-Suiza 220 H. P. 



282 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

would come back from a fight and tell them that their 
pilot had gone down, and, again, I have known them 
to walk around for half the night, unable to sleep, 
because their man was missing. 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 




Insignia of U. S. Military Pilot 



Oct. 27, 1018, 4th Pursuit Group, 
American E. F., Toul. 

As you will see by the heading of this letter I am no 
longer with the 13th Aero Squadron. Two days ago 
I received orders relieving me of that command, and 
have been made C. 0. of the 4th Pursuit Group, which 
comprises four chasse squadrons and one squadron for 
the overhaul of motors, headquarters work, etc. Have 
got three squadrons now and the other two arrive in 
a week's time. The group, however, is an entirely 
new one, as are several of the squadrons in it, and it is 
up to me to organize it and get it working as soon as 
possible. As I have as yet hardly any group head- 
quarters staff or organization to operate with and have 
somewhere between 1,000 and 1,100 officers and men 
to look after, you may imagine that time does not 
hang heavily on my hands. 

I guess this new job pretty nearly finishes my days 
of active flying on the lines, although I did manage to 
bring with me my special machine which I must try 
out on a Boche the first chance I get. By the way, 
that Hun with the red wings I wrote you about last 
week was confirmed, so I guess he was not quite so 
smart as he thought he was. Expect to have so much 
organization work to do in the next month that I 
doubt very much if I shall be able to fly at all during 
that time. The weather continues punk, though, so 
I guess I am not missing much. Have been figuring it 
out roughly and the property, planes, trucks, etc., 
which I have in the group comes to about ($2,000,000) 

285 



286 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

two million dollars in money value. When one con- 
siders what a small item a single group is in the whole 
army one does not wonder that you are all having 
Liberty Loan drives at home. 

P. S. — The boy with the red wings makes my seventh 
official Hun. 

Toul, Nov. 12, 191S 
It is hard to believe that the whole show is really 
over and that we shall probably never have to fight 
again. Yesterday morning they called me up from 
headquarters and said that no more patrols were to 
go out as the armistice went into effect at 11 a. m. I 
hung up the receiver with a sort of a "Well ! What do 
we do now?" feeling. It is a wonderful relief to have 
it over, but it does leave j'ou with a very much "let 
down" feeling, as though one had suddenly lost one's 
job. Having been at it so long it almost seems as 
though one had never done anything else and that 
one's reason for existing had suddenly ceased. I wish 
I could simply drop everything and come home, but 
I fear that time is still a long way off. With 125 offi- 
cers and about 950 men on my hands I shall be mighty 
busy devising means to keep them well and amused 
and out of mischief. Then again, this being only an 
armistice, the formation of the group, gathering of sup- 
plies, planes, etc., goes on as usual as though the War 
were to last forever, so that I shall be just as busy as 
if nothing had happened. Our days of air fighting are 
over. I guess, but the administration and organization 
work goes on as usual and I am mighty sick of it. We 
shall be a sort of international police for a while, but 
here's hoping they hurry up with the peace confab 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 287 

so that we can all close up shop and come home. 
About our only chance for excitement will be strafing 
some Hun riot, which would be lots of fun. That is 
the way I like to fight, against some one who cannot 
do much shooting back and turning one's machine 
guns on a Boche revolution ought to furnish no end of 
amusement to us bloodthirsty fighting guys ! ! It will 
be immensely interesting, though, if we should be sent 
up to the Rhine and live among the Hun population 
for a while. One thing this young man intends to do 
in such a situation is to always carry a couple of auto- 
matics about with him, for having seen the War through 
this far he has no desire to have some swine of a Hun 
stab him in the back on a dark night. 

What do you all think of the armistice terms? If 
they go through with them they do not leave the Hun 
much chance to start the war again, do they? There 
does not seem one chance in a thousand that there will 
be any more fighting outside of what the Boches may 
do to each other if there is a revolution. When one 
thinks of the critical situation in which we were last 
June, it seems nothing less than a miracle that this 
wonderful change should have come about and the 
war be over in so short a time. I suppose Foch will 
be considered the world's greatest general and he cer- 
tainly deserves it. No man ever had as difficult and 
stupendous a job handed over to him, and it is hard 
to see how he could have handled it better. 

Had to interrupt this epistle this afternoon and 
have just now come in from a movie show which we 
set up for the men in an old barn. One of the squad- 
ron commanders bought a first-rate machine the other 
day and we get a new set of pictures each day through 



288 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

the Y. M. C. A. To-night was the first show and the 
pictures were really splendid, as good as anything you 
ever saw in a first-class movie house at home. The 
show to-night was "The Three Things" — you remem- 
ber that little story about the war by Mary Shipman 
Andrews. We must try to get a lot of comics of the 
Charley Chaplin variety; I think they appeal to the 
men more than anything; one gets a bit fed up on this 
war business. The movie machine cost 3,700 francs, 
but we charge a small admission fee, and if the attend- 
ance to-night continues it will not take long to pay 
for the apparatus. The girl who took the heroine's 
part to-night was the prettiest thing you ever saw. I 
would like to see her in real life, just to see how much 
of it was make-up; the original article would probably 
be an awful disappointment. 

A peculiar thing happened here day before yester- 
day. It cleared up for a spell and a Rumpler came in 
over the field very high up, our attention being at- 
tracted by the "Archies" blazing away at him. For 
fifteen months I have watched "Archie" shoot at Hun 
planes and never saw him hit one yet, but on the last 
day of the War, as we watched this fellow, he sud- 
denly went into a spin as a shell burst near him and 
spun down for about 2,000 metres. The observer fell 
overboard and then the pilot straightened his machine 
out and suddenly popped overboard with a parachute, 
leaving his machine to take care of itself. Down she 
came and dove head first into the ground with a crash 
t hat we could hear two miles away. It seemed to take 
the pilot forever to come down in his parachute, but he 
finally landed perfectly all right. He said the "Archie " 
did not get him but that he side-slipped into a spin by 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 289 

accident and his observer fell out. Why he should 
have jumped from a perfectly good machine, even 
though his observer was gone, is hard to see, for there 
were none of our planes anywhere about. I think, the 
man must have been lying, although I must admit 
that the " Archies" did not appear to be coming very 
close to him. He said that they were all expecting the 
armistice to be signed, and that his C. 0. had told the 
squadron that no one need fly, but that he and his 
observer had gone out anyhow for a bit of a joy-ride. 
They got it all right. The observer hit so hard he 
made a great big hole in the ground. 

Speaking of guardian angels, as parachutes are 
dubbed in the air service, I remember one which 
worked very well, but perhaps not just as the Huns 
intended it to. During the fighting near Reims last 
spring a Hun" two-seater was attacked by several 
French Spads. The Boche pilot put his machine into 
a spin and allowed it to fall a long distance in this way, 
this, of course, being merely a ruse to escape. He 
evidently put up a pretty good bluff, because his 
observer got scared, and thinking that his pilot had 
been hit, jumped overboard in his parachute. Just 
before the plane reached the ground, however, the 
pilot straightened her out and flew safely back to his 
own lines, while the observer with his parachute landed 
equally safely in our lines. 

I wish I could get off for a few days and go to Paris, 
for there are a number of people there I should like to 
see, to say nothing of the tremendous celebration they 
must be having. I ran over to Nancy last night in 
my car, and if the spree in Paris was like the one there, 
it must have been a wild night on the boulevards. 



290 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

Am afraid, however, that I shall have to miss it all, for 
there seems to be little prospect of my getting away 
just now. Perhaps a little later I can arrange it. I 
hope so, for I feel pretty stale and think a few days' 
change would do me good. I will admit now that 
there have been days recently when I did not want to 
fly a bit, the losses in the squadron were so heavy that 
it was hard not to let it get on one's nerves. Twelve 
pilots in three weeks is pretty hard on the morale of 
the ten who are left. I am speaking of the original 
members, for a squadron is, of course, kept up to 
strength by replacements. Things went much better 
afterward, however, and for a month we had no losses 
at all and the squadron did some good work. A couple 
of days after I left it seven of them jumped on seven 
Fokkers and shot down six without any of our men 
even getting their planes shot up. That is a clean-up 
which is hard to beat; in fact, the most successful fight 
I have ever heard of and I certainly hated to miss it. 
Now the open season for Huns is over and you can't 
half guess how glad I am. To-night the moon is shin- 
ing and we admire it instead of swearing at it and tak- 
ing to the dugouts. It is almost too good to be true 
to think that before very long we shall be home again. 
There have naturally been a good many days when 
the chance of ever getting back again seemed a bit 
slim, and it is hard to realize that I shall some day be 
shooting ducks on the river once more. The losses in 
the 13th Squadron were pretty high, but recent re- 
ports received through the Red Cross make things look 
brighter. Of the eleven men who went down inside 
the German lines up to the time of my leaving the 
squadron, six were not killed but are prisoners, some 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 291 

of them wounded, but just how badly we do not know. 
During offensives such as we have had in the last 
couple of months considerable losses are, of course, to 
be expected. I remember that in my old French 
squadron during the four months of the battle for the 
Passchendaele ridge, we lost nine out of the original 
fourteen, but of these nine two were killed in accidents. 



Paris, Dec. 1, 1918. 

Since arriving here I have seen my old friend H , 

who has just come back from a German prison-camp. 
You will remember that I wrote to you last spring that 
he had been shot down for the second time, but had 
this time gone down behind the German lines. I got 
from him the story of what happened to him, and 
although we all thought he had already had about as 
narrow an escape as a man could have and live to tell 
the tale, he went it one better this time. 

H was in a fight with some Albatross single- 
seaters, and was diving steeply down on the tail of 
one of them. Evidently one of his wings was defec- 
tive, for a large part of the cloth suddenly tore loose 
and ripped off. This unbalanced his machine, and 
he started to go down in a slow spin, but by using his 
motor and putting all his controls to one side he was 
able to right his plane and started back for our lines. 
About this time the German " Archies" started to 

take a hand in the fight, and H received a direct 

hit from a 77 shell. He was flying a type of plane* 

which has a rotary motor, in which, as you know, the 

cylinders are set about the crank shaft in much the 

* Nieuport, type 28. 



292 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

same way as the spokes of a wheel are set around the 
hub. The shell stuck between two cylinders but failed 
to explode. It must, of course, have been pretty 
nearly at the top of its trajectory, or it would have 
knocked the motor all to pieces anyhow. As it was, 

the impact tossed H 's plane about in the air and 

stopped the motor and he was then no longer able to 
control his crippled machine. He fell once more into 
a spin, going down in this way for many thousand feet 
until he finally crashed in Hunland. His motor had 
been so nearly carried away by the shell that when he 
struck the ground it fell off the machine and rolled 
away to one side, where it was later found with the 
unexploded shell still stuck between the cylinders. 

H himself broke both his ankles in the crash, one 

of them very badly. He spent several months in a 
Hun hospital and was then sent to a prison-camp. 
When I saw him he walked with a slight limp, but aside 
from that was as well as ever. If anybody can beat 
his experiences for hairbreadth escapes I would like to 
hear about them. His guardian angel has certainly 
stuck to him through thick and thin. 

Hobe Baker and some of the pilots in his squadron 
had a peculiar fight with a Hun two-seater a few days 
before the armistice. They met him very high up, 
about 20,000 feet. Hobe gave him a burst from be- 
hind and must have hit the pilot, for the Hun flopped 
over on his back and the observer fell out, coming 
down with a thud a considerable distance in our lines. 
The machine fell upside down for four or five thousand 
feet, when the pilot evidently came to, for he righted 
his plane and tried to get back to his own lines. Hobe 
and one of his men jumped on him again and fairly 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 293 

riddled him, and the Boche finally crashed about a 
mile in Hunland. About a week after the signing of 
the armistice we crossed the lines and went up to the 
wreck of the plane. In it and scattered all about it 
we found a lot of propaganda leaflets, which the Huns 
had been engaged in dropping among our infantry 
when they ran into our patrol. The leaflets are printed 
in French on one side and English on the other and 
are headed: "The German People Offers Peace." I 
enclose you one of them. You will notice that even 
at this stage of the game they still maintain their right 
to attack passenger steamers carrying war material. I 
think the veiled threat contained in the paragraph 
"Who is to blame, if the hitherto undestroyed towns 
and villages of France and Belgium sink in ashes?" is 
rather significant. 

The practice of dropping propaganda from aero- 
planes is now, of course, an old one. I remember 
when we used to drop copies of some of President 
Wilson's speeches. You may recall that the Huns 
once sentenced two Englishmen to long terms of im- 
prisonment who had been forced to come down in their 
lines after dropping propaganda. Is it not typical of 
the logic of the Hun mind that a man who drops 
bombs is merely committing an act of war, while he 
who drops bits of paper is considered a criminal ? 

I am glad to say that Lieut. Fonck pulled through 
the war all right, and ended up with a score of seventy- 
five or seventy-six official Huns, I am not sure which. 
This is top score for the Allies, and the highest authen- 
tic record of any one pilot during the war. Fonck's 
actual score is much higher even than this, and it is 
safe to say without exaggeration that he brought down 



294 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 



The German People Offers Peace. 

Tbe new German democratic government has this programme: 

"The will of the people is the highest law.'* 
The German, people wants quickly to end the slaughter. 
The new German popular government therefore bat offered aa 

Armistice 
and has declared itself ready for 

Peace 

bn the basis of justice and reconciliation of nations. 

It is the will of the German people that it should live In peace with all 
peoples, honestly and loyally. 

_ What has the new German popular government done so far to pnt into practice 
the will of the people and to prove its good and upright intentions? 

a) The new German government has appealed to President Wilson 
to bring about peace. 

it has recognized and accepted all the principles which 
President Wilson proclaimed as a basis for a general lasting 
peace of Justice among the nations. 

b) The new German government has solemnly declared its readiness to evacuate 
Belgium and to restore it 

c) The new German government is ready to come to an honest understanding 
with France about 

Alsace-Lorraine 

d) The new German government has restricted the U-boat War. 

No passengers steamers not carrying troops 
or war material will be attacked In future. 

c) The new German government has declared that it will withdraw all 

German troops back over the German frontier. 
f) — The new German government has asked the Allied Governments to 
name commissioners to agree upon the practical measures of the 
evacuation of Belgium and France. 
These are the deeds of the new German popular government. Can 
DMte be called mere words, or bluff, or propaganda? 

Who is to blame, if an armistice is not called now? 

Who is to blame if daily thousands of brave soldiers needlessly have to 
•bed their Mood and die? 

Who is to blame, if the hitherto uadectroved towns and villages of Francs 
and Belgium sink in ashes? 

Who is to blame, if hundreds of thousands of unhappy women and children 
are drives from their homes to hunger and freeze? 

The German people offers its hand 
for peace. 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 295 

somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and 
twenty German machines. I remember very well how 
in Flanders in the Fall of 1917 he used to come back 
from a flight and ask for confirmations on sometimes 
two and sometimes three or four Huns whom he was 
practically certain he had gotten, and yet he could 
get only one of them confirmed. Taking everything 
into consideration, Fonck is, to my mind, in a class 
by himself as a fighting pilot. There have been many 
other great pilots just as brave, such as Guynemer 
and Ball, but none of them have combined with it 
Fonck' s marvellous skill. I know that up to the time 
that I left Groupe 12 of the French Aviation, Fonck 
had been hit only once, having then gotten one bullet 
through a wing. I saw Captain Deullin the other day 
and he told me that he had maintained this record to 
the end, throughout hundreds of fights. It is hard for 
one not familiar with air fighting to realize what this 
means. Luck has, of course, had something to do 
with it, but I think the principal reason lies in Fonck's 
almost uncanny shooting ability, and his faculty of 
almost being able to smell a Hun, and thus always get 
the jump on him. 

I have been doing a good deal of thinking lately 
about the tactics of air fighting, and have come to the 
conclusion that I have often been overcautious. I 
know that if the war had gone on I would have materi- 
ally changed my own methods, particularly in the 
matter of attacking two-seaters. I have always tried 
to take them from the rear and below, and to protect 
myself by keeping in the blind spot behind their tails. 
This is a first-rate method if the Hun does not see you, 
but the trouble is to get there, and he will almost 



296 THE WAY OF THE EAGLE 

always see you before you get in shooting position. 
In this way you lose the tremendous advantage of a 
surprise, and as the Hun is always manoeuvring to try- 
to get you out from the vulnerable spot beneath his 
tail, you nearly always have an unsteady target and 
consequently one which is hard to hit. Particularly if 
one is above one's enemy when one catches sight of 
him, I think that an attack carried out with great speed 
from above would give better results. One would then 
rely for protection upon the element of surprise, speed, 
and particularly upon accurate shooting. Reliable 
machine guns would, of course, be of the greatest im- 
portance, as they always are. If you missed him, or 
anything went wrong, you would probably have to 
protect yourself by keeping right on going and passing 
down below him. The shooting would certainly be 
simplified, for the Hun two-seater pilot would not have 
the same reason to manoeuvre his plane. For a green 
man such a method of attack would be rather danger- 
ous, but for an experienced pilot I think it would offer 
much greater chances of success, and I wish that I 
had come to this conclusion before it was too late to 
try it out. 

Now that the war is over the question which natu- 
rally presents itself to one's mind is "Is it over too 
soon?" There is no question about it that it would 
have been a great satisfaction if we could have gone 
on and gotten into Germany and given them a taste 
of what they have been giving us for the last four 
years. Do you think the Huns are repentant for what 
they have done? As has been so often said, the Hun 
is fundamentally in his nature a bully, and like all 
bullies begins to whine for mercy when he finds that 



4th PURSUIT GROUP, A. E. F. 297 

he is getting the worst of it. But put him back where 
he was in 1914 and 1915, when he thought he was 
going to win, and he would commit the same outrages, 
only worse, so as to get square for having been thwarted 
this time. 

And do you suppose for one moment that the Hun 
thinks he is licked? Not a bit of it! And if we in 
future years forget what he has done and do not make 
him feel it, he never will realize it. The Allies are the 
ones who will dictate the terms of peace, and if we use 
our power and make those terms strong enough, the 
fact that he is beaten should be brought home to the 
Hun. If we do this, then, of course, the war ended 
none too soon, for satisfying as it would have been to 
have invaded Germany, the cost in the lives of our 
men would have been too great to have continued the 
fight a day after it became unnecessary. 



/ 



u 60-79 f 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: irm t^, 

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